Doppelganger
by Willow70
Summary: My summaries are always too long to fit here...please read summary with first chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Doppelganger**

_This is a response to the April 2011 challenge on a JaSam board, but I thought I would post it here too. _

_Summary: Jason returns home to find that Sam has been kidnapped in an attempt to draw him into a twisted killer's game. Confusion arises, however, when Sam seemingly returns home with no memory of her life. As the killer still claims to have Sam and offers proof, the game gets even trickier. Can Jason find out what's going on before it's too late?_

_Rating: Mostly R maybe a little more in some graphic chapters. I'll post additional ratings if that's the case. _

_This story starts out all kinds of disturbing but I in no way will be going gory or trying to shock with violence – most of this story will focus on the angst of trying to find out which Sam is the real Sam and saving the one that is still in harms way._

**_As always there is a promo video on my Youtube account which you can find on my profile page._ **

**Chapter One**

"**Does the soul's memory find a place for love?"**

Fear couldn't have choked harder as the strangled gasp that escaped Damian Spinelli's throat in one faint heartbeat. He was trying his best to push himself back to his feet, but he couldn't get enough traction, couldn't find some way to escape the slip and slide of coppery nightmare. He wasn't sure when he managed to get to his hands and knees, but even denim knees couldn't seem to help him brave the river of blood that had become the upstairs bathroom.

He wasn't sure he could call it luck, hell he wasn't even sure that he could string two coherent thoughts together as he scrambled out the bathroom door and into the hallway of his and Jason's penthouse apartment, still scarred by the ragged bloodied quote that was carved into the wall as if it somehow was meant to make sense. It seemed an eternity before he could move, before he could make some trembling half crazed attempt to get to the phone downstairs.

When he got there he stared at the black offending object his blood covered hand hovering inches above it as he tried to remember what it was used for, who he could call.

_God, whose blood was that?_

_It couldn't have been from one person, could it?_

Spinelli was trying to force his brain to respond, but he was stuck in some stutter of shock. His hand finally wrapped around the receiver as he closed his eyes and tried to remember where Sam and Jason were.

_Sam – survelliance...right...investment banker...undercover...right he should call Jason...or the cops, no not the cops, Sonny, no Jason...Jason would be done with the shipment by now..._

Spinelli picked up the phone and dialed Jason's cell, shaking like a leaf. "Pick up, pick up, pick up..."

**ZZZZZZZZZZ**

Jason adjusted the rear view as he drove, darkness settling the need to keep the bright lights of head light beams from being mirrored into his field of vision. He was bone tired after two straight days of fielding shipments and wanted to just get home and spend some time with Sam. He knew she'd been just as busy as the case she was working on had hit a few road blocks that had taken her undercover, but she'd promised to be home by midnight if at all possible.

They needed the time.

They both been working circles around each other for months and it was starting to get to them, tearing at their relationship, tearing at their demeanor, He could admit that he'd been quick tempered as of late and it wasn't too much of a stretch to say that she was a little more than cranky. So they'd both promised to make the effort, to get things back on track, to spend more time with each other, making the necessary sacrifices in their businesses to put each other back on top as priorities.

Jason heard his muffled cell ring from his pocket, letting him know that someone was calling from the apartment phone and he felt a hint of a smile playing at his lips as he imagined Sam already there, impatiently waiting for him. He answered professionally on the off chance that it wasn't her. "Morgan."

"Stonecold..." Jason lost any traces of the smile the moment he heard the raw terror in Spinelli's voice.

"What's wrong?" Jason was instantly accelerating, pushing the car to the limits to make it home faster, trying not to entertain the imaginary scenarios that his brain could come up with in favor of staying in control.

"The Jackal arrived home to our abode to find a most..." For once Spinelli was struggling to find the right words. "A sinister force has been at work."

"What happened, Spinelli ?" Jason asked, trying to inflect the importance of him conveying the information sooner rather than later.

"Most of the fortress of solitude was left alone, but the most intimate lavatory has been..." Jason furrowed his brow hearing Spinelli fighting gagging. "There is biological waste covering everything, the walls, the floor, the bathtub, toilet. There was a quote chiseled into the walls but it seems cryptic at best. 'Does the soul's memory find a place for love?'"

"Biological waste...Spinelli what does that mean?" Jason wasn't sure what sort of biological waste he meant and not that any of it was really appealing. Not to mention that quotes on the walls conjured up memories of the sick and twisted, serial killers like Franco and that wasn't boding well.

"Coppery life force..."

"Blood? Our bathroom is covered in blood?" Jason parked the car and made it out into the parking deck heading at a run for the elevator. "I'm on my way up. Has Sam come in? Have you talked to her?" He could tell that Spinelli was still in shock so he wasn't about to ask him to try and investigate how this asshole got into their apartment. What he needed more than anything, though was to know that Sam was alright.

"The Goddess is undercover, I thought it best to..." Jason cut him off with a growl and suddenly hung up on him as he got into the elevator and quickly dialed her number. Ring after ring teased his heart to the tempo of a run away train until he closed his eyes in frustration when he he heard the beep of her voice mail picking up. Jason almost hung up, thinking to call her back after he checked over the apartment but he paused when he heard that her receiving voice mail message had changed. Instead of Sam's sensual voice asking for someone to leave a message a mechanical voice said the following.

"Visit ." Jason felt icy tendrils of terror cascading through his veins as he exited the elevator and hurried to the front door, quickly checking for signs of a break in on his way inside. There were none. As if Jason wasn't scared enough from the creepy voice mail message once his eyes combed over Spinelli he felt his heart taking a screaming nose dive into the pit of his stomach. Spinelli was covered from head to toe in blood. And the rest of the apartment bore the inflection from his encounter with it. There was blood tracked down the steps and all through the house from his panicked escape from the bathroom.

Jason didn't have time to take pity on him. "Get cleaned up, or change clothes or whatever you need to do but I need you to hurry. I need you to check out this web site. ."

"I'm on it." Spinelli stuttered out as he looked up the stairs wearily a moment before heading reluctantly in that direction to get changed. Jason was on his heels needing to see the damage as he was already dialing Sonny. Jason had seen a lot in his line of work, but there were somethings that made even a professional squeamish. He was listening to the ring of Sonny's phone as he pushed open the bathroom door and his mouth dropped in horror.

Spinelli hadn't been kidding. The whole bathroom was red, the shower, the tub, the sink and toilet, floor and walls. There had to be blood from twenty different bodies here. The only bare spot was the place where the animal had left enough space to leave the quote and for the life of him he didn't understand what it meant. What scared him though is that he would soon know...and he was quite sure he didn't want to.

"Yeah." Sonny's voice snapped him out of his horror and Jason turned away from the sight in the bathroom, fighting gagging on the scent. This was a lunatic at work and by God he better not have Sam. Jason was trying not to entertain what it meant that her voice mail message had been changed.

"I need a heavy guard detail at the penthouse." Jason was on the move again, sticking his head in Spinelli's room in time to see Spin pulling a sweat shirt over his head. Jason needed to see if any of the current guards were even still around, what he was afraid of though, was they they were part of the mess in his bathroom. Jason swallowed tightly, closing his eyes. "I need you to see if you can find out where Amos, Roy, Harris, and Justin are..."

"I thought they were guarding your place, Jason, whats going on?" Sonny asked worriedly.

Jason watched as Spinelli got his laptop open and he watched as he talked, looking over his shoulder to see what this web site was. "Someone broke into the penthouse and painted the upstairs bathroom in blood. I think my guard detail is dead. Sam's missing and the outgoing message has some reference to a web page. I've got Spinelli checking it out right now."

Sonny was quiet for a long moment as they were both reeling from the shock. In their business it became a survival trait to see what was coming, but when things like this happened, nightmares in shades of shock, there was no amount of planning that could prepare a person. "An enemy?" Sonny wasn't sure where to start on the suspect list as no one he could think of would operate like that.

"It's got a serial feel, Sonny, reminds me of something Franco might pull, but something about it doesn't seem like him..." Jason didn't want to even think about the possibility of being a target of another mad man, hell even if it wasn't Franco it could still be his work, maybe he sent someone else after him, to toy with him.

Jason watched as a Spinelli's screen danced to black and then...Loud clacking like a typewriter accompanied letters rapidly filling the darkness in shades of crimson to match the bathroom.

"Would you like to play a game?" the computer finally spelled out and two boxes appeared on the screen. There was a place to click 'yes' and a place to click 'no'.

"I'll get the guards on their way and check on the ones scheduled to be there tonight. Have you considered calling Dante in?" Sonny asked in wonder.

"I need to know more before I make that decision. Thanks about the guards." Jason got off the phone and looked at the screen. Spinelli was looking over his shoulder, fear dancing behind his eyes as he seemed to be silently asking Jason what he should do.

"Tell him, No." Jason licked at his lips, nervously. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, hell he wasn't even sure there was a right thing. Spinelli clicked 'No' and the screen went black a moment before the clicking sound began again and they watched in wonder as the screen spelled out "Wrong answer."

Jason swallowed tightly as there was suddenly a flash and he felt bile rising in his throat as he saw Amos appear on the screen via real time video feed, the man begging for his life to no avail. A single gun shot fired from off camera felled him in an instant.

"God, no!" Spinelli didn't look away fast enough and Jason couldn't tear his gaze from the screen, his fist balled at his side. What sort of sick freak would do something like this?

"Would you like to play a game?" The screen rushed back to black and the red letters mocked him as the boxes appeared for 'yes' and 'no' once more.

"Click, Yes." Jason's voice was choked with emotion as he'd just watched his friend and co-worker murdered right before him all because he'd picked the wrong damn button. The screen faded to black once more and Jason waited on pins and needle praying that it was the right choice even as he hated that he felt like he had none.

"Excellent, lets start with a choice..." The letters spelled out.

Jason wasn't sure where this was going but he felt a gnawing ache in his chest as he fought the bile rising in his throat, disgust heavy in his features. More video feed flashed onto the screen and Jason felt his breath hitch in his chest as his agonized gaze washed over Sam, beating a door to no avail, screaming in mute. A number 1 flashed onto the screen. Another flash and there was more video feed, this time of Sam dressed differently, sitting across from the door with her knees pulled into her chest. The number 2 flashed onto the screen.

"Choose who will be lost...and I will give you a chance to save the other..." Jason didn't understand what this mad man was asking.

"Those were both in real time..." Spinelli sounded as confused as he felt.

"They can't be." Jason shook his head. "There's only one Sam, could he have faked it, or maybe the clarity's off. He doctored the footage."

"It's streaming live, Stonecold, the probability that any tampering could have been made it miniscule." Spinelli explained.

"Choose who will be lost..." two boxes appeared under the prompt one containing a '1' and the other a '2'.

"What the hell does that mean?" Jason felt so damn helpless. He couldn't even begin to think of how to pick which one was real and which one wasn't. He didn't even know what she had been wearing earlier that evening. "Spinelli, do you recognize either of the outfits?"

"I didn't see Fair Samantha today." Spinelli shook his head. "I...I don't ...I don't know..."

Jason ran a hand over his mouth and chin in desperation as he leaned in closer. This asshole had already killed a man in front of them. Now he was asking him to pick one of the Sam's to be lost, did that mean killed? Jason slammed his fist through the wall to his left and then kicked it until a bleep from the lap top had Spinelli trying to reel him back in.

"He's posted a time limit!" Spinelli cried in horror and Jason looked back to see a clock counting down from 30 seconds.

"Dammit!" Jason close his eyes and made the most heart wrenching decision of his life. His reasoning was simple and horrible. Sam was a fighter and on the short lived glances he had of both of them he decided that she was the one pounding on her cell door. "Pick 2, 2 to be lost, whatever the hell that means." He choked on the words realizing that he most likely just sent someone to their death as he prayed that it wasn't Sam. God he wasn't sure how he would live with himself...

What he did know for sure was that this guy was going to die and he was going to be the one to kill him.

"The choice has been made. You have 12 hours to find my next site. We'll be in touch..." The screen flashed to the cell for Sam number 2 and Jason couldn't tear his gaze from the screen, terrified that he was about to watch the murder he'd ordered. He wasn't prepared for the cell door to simply pop open, for Sam to walk right through in confused wonder.

And in a breath it was gone...the video, everything...

"What happened?" Jason asked in panic. "What was that? What site? A computer site? Find him!"

"The Jackal is trying!" Spinelli screamed back, his voice cracking under the strain off all this. "I don't have any more information than you, Stonecold, but I infer that he is referring to another site as this one is no longer operational."

"You get me something! Anything!" Jason was already dialing Sonny back as he bolted out of the room and down the stairs. Sonny didn't even really get a breath out before Jason started talking. "This guy is an animal. He shot Amos right in front of me and Spinelli on some sort of live video feed. I don't even know if he has Sam," Jason really didn't. The bastard had her phone that was for sure and he went through a lot of trouble to make it look like he had Sam, but Jason couldn't be sure. They both looked like her and he knew there couldn't be two Sam's. Except that in the back of his mind he knew there could be...Alicia.

"Alright, alright, calm down." Sonny soothed. "If this guy is like Franco there is chance that he's in some law enforcement data base, I can either call Dante to check on it or you can see if Spinelli can hack in and see."

"Spinelli's busy with something else. Call Dante, but he's got to keep this quiet. I can't turn the penthouse into a three ring circus. We won't be able to do what needs to be done when the time comes." Jason grabbed a bag from the closet down stairs and pulled a gun out, needing to feel the security of another ones company.

"I'll see what I can do." Sonny promised.

"I need another favor." Jason close his eyes as he breathed in deeply, trying to find any sort of calm to balm his frayed nerves.

"Name it."

"I need you to see if Alicia Montenegro is still in prison." Jason felt like he was reeling, trying his damnedest to put this together in some context that made sense, but that was a tall order with no more that they had to go on and it was obvious that this guy wanted it that way. "If not I need a last known. This guy could be using her as a double for Sam. I just need to know if it's a possibility or not." Jason explained as best he could. If this guy really was using both Alicia and Sam, which one had been released, if that was truly what had happened. Jason had no real way of knowing that whoever hadn't just been let out to their death.

It just didn't feel right. He'd had no qualms about killing Amos on screen, it seemed like if he planned on killing Sam or Alicia or whoever that he would have done it on screen as well. Then again something about the use of the word 'lost' instead of 'dead' or 'killed' was offsetting – nothing added up yet.

"I'll check into it, you should have guards in about 10 minutes. I'll get back to you." Sonny hurried off the line leaving Jason in a mess of trying to sort through his addled brain. They would have to get a cleaner here for the bathroom, but he couldn't even start to think about that yet. What had happened to the Sam he'd chosen?

Jason still didn't have an answer to that question ten minutes later when the guards arrived. Jason got them set on a routine and headed up the stairs to see if Spinelli had found anything, he wasn't half way up the steps when there was a short knock before, Max peaked his head in.

"Sir," Jason turned just in time to see Max gingerly walking the Sam he'd seen released from the cell into the living room. "She was wandering in from the street. Seemed lost." Max was eying her worriedly.

Jason raced back down the stairs praying, hoping, that he'd been wrong, that this was Sam, his Sam, that his choice had found her released and back in his arms so easily. He stopped an arm length away from her, combing over her as he looked for any indication that she wasn't his Sam. When he didn't find one he was almost daring to hope. Until he met her eyes. Jason felt all hope sinking away as he read the fear and uncertainty, the nonrecognition as she looked at him.

"Alicia?" Jason asked with a tight swallow.

She didn't answer right away, but when she did Jason finally understood what the man meant by lost.

"Do you know me? Do you know who I am? I can't remember anything..." She whispered in choked fear, eyes pleading with him for an answer that he couldn't give her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Doppelganger**

_Thanks everyone for your patience. Things here are slowly working themselves out. There is still much to be done and many people in need, but everyone here and so many volunteers from else where are really helping.(I'm in Alabama for those trying to play catch up and it's bad near here) I'm still waiting on our tree to be removed from the kitchen but with everything that's happened that's really the least of my worries. I finally got internet back up a few days ago and found out that we don't have to make up finals ( see there is a silver lining :P ) _

_So here is the next installment of Doppelganger. _

_Thanks for the reviews and interest so far. I really appreciate it as well as the thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming :) You guys are fabfreakingtabulous!_

**Chapter Two**

"No, no, it doesn't matter, Sonny." Jason was pacing the corridors of General Hospital's emergency room waiting on the before mentioned to arrive. "Do not call him..." he was trying not to explain it on the phone, he would rather Sonny see it for himself as if that would somehow make it so that he didn't have to explain so much, spare him the cruelty of telling him what this monster had done to the maybe Sam.

Jason couldn't rightfully blame Sonny for suggesting that they simply get the woman's fingerprints, he'd thought of the same thing, Sam's were in the system after all and it was Spinelli that pointed out that even with identical twins fingerprints differed enough to tell them apart under close scrutiny. Unfortunately, whoever was the game master of this fun filled horror show had taken precautions to keep them from identifying who he'd sent home to them.

Jason exhaled sharply as she leaned back against the wall. The guy had indeed sent her home to them. He'd given her directions to the penthouse via an intercom before he'd released her blindly into the world minus her memory. Jason pummeled his fist into the wall at his back as anger wavered through him once more. He'd been riding the tides of rage for hours and ever time he thought about the condition that he'd sent her out in...he just...he wanted to get his hands around the bastards throat. The ass hole had sent her out doped on pain pills because he's previously chemically burned off all the padded tips of her fingers along with all traces of scars, rendering gaining a finger print sample useless as well as trying to use known scars to identify her.

Sonny was making a case for bringing Dante in and Jason didn't want any cops involved as anything that law enforcement could do seemed to be getting less and less critical. Spinelli was working on finding the other web site and Sonny had others looking into Alicia. Jason felt lost, torn, trying to make sense of his actions should the woman down the hall from him actually be Sam without her memory or the possibility that it was someone else without theirs. It was complicated on so many different levels.

"Sonny, she doesn't have any fingerprints to run." Jason finally got out between clenched teeth. "And if Dante files this anywhere in the system..." Jason thought of the other woman still in the madman's clutches. "Sam could still be kidnapped. And this monster might kill her if he thinks the police are involved." Besides what had the cops ever really done for them besides muck things up. Jason closed his eyes when Sonny asked about DNA and he shook his head knowing full well that he couldn't see him. "Even on a rush it's going to take 48 hours." Jason got out with a hiss to his voice conveying the pain behind his headache as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We have no way of knowing if this charade is even going to last long enough for the results to come in and on the off chance that Alicia and Sam are actually twins, cause they damn well look like they could be, Spinelli says that it might be impossible to tell which is which. All I need is to know where Alicia is...if she's still in lock up that could solve everything...let us know..." Jason couldn't hide the quiver from his voice, the raw emotion betraying his desperation. It was like torture. She was ten feet away from him, in a cubical, in a bed and yet he couldn't prove it. She could still be in the clutches of a mad man.

Suddenly the futility of their concern about drifting apart was like an ache of normalcy, a mark on their relationship that begged to be recognized as they had been there, not just some maybe from wavering possibilities. Worse yet he didn't know if comforting the person behind the curtain in cubicle one constituted love or stepping over some line. Jason saw Sonny round the corner of the hallway and they both met each others eyes before they ended the call to each other. Jason was blinking back tears of desperation his heart feeling as if it was still being ever raked over.

Sonny's face fell as realization dawned at witness of his friends true state. Silence reigned as Sonny made his way over, the heaviness that he felt from Jason weighing his steps. They embraced quietly, shortly, and when Sonny pulled back he met his friends eyes once more. "We should know in an hour." He promised him, hoping that gave him some measure of solace. He watched Jason nod with a sniff, trying to reign in the tears and looked away, giving him the moment to compose himself.

"Spinelli is looking into the site, trying to find the footage again. He said when the site went down it breached his system and wiped the temporary files. We can't review the footage." Jason frowned .

"So this guy knows about computers?" Sonny reasoned out.

"Or is working with someone who does." Jason nodded.

"The latter would make him more vulnerable." Sonny stepped to the curtain down the hall and peaked through the crack into 'Sam's' cubicle at the woman there, as she fearfully watched the monitors fighting her own emotional battle. He made his way back to Jason, shielding her from their doubts. "If that's not Sam..."

"I know..." Jason nodded not needing him to voice his own thoughts on the matter. He'd been battling his own memory demons when he'd met Alicia – Sonny didn't have to go on. They looked identical. Had he not been in the condition he was in then he might have been inclined to question it farther. He was sure that Sam had...

Jason perked up at that...

If Sam had wondered she would have investigated. She would have a file. But wouldn't she have told him? So much had happened since they met Alicia and her mother, their own relationship had weathered heart ache and loss before they'd found their way back to each other. It could have been oversight or deliberate – she was always putting her own life on hold to help him, save the recent dive into her own work. Maybe she'd found something.

The new lead gave Jason the edge that he needed to break out of the settling fears. "Is the cleaning crew at the apartment yet?" He asked Sonny in a hushed voice. He caught Sonny's nod and went on. "I need to go through Sam's files, I need to see if she was working on anything from her past, possibly on her birth parents. She was already skeptical about Alexis just because the file had already been tampered with..."

"Jason this thing isn't some random retaliation for someone digging to deep into their past. It's too personal and it's obviously against you." Sonny pointed out trying to follow his addled logic.

"Not just you." They both turned to see Spinelli walking up with is laptop in hand. "There was another far more heinous person watching the broadcast and voting with Stonecold." He explained. "I found the other evil doers IP address when I was trying to restore the Jackal's own logs." He explained. He could see the question in both of their eyes, imploring him to tell them who else had been determining Sam's fate. "You're not going to believe this...but the address belonged to the Brutal Mob Boss, Anthony Zacchara."

Sonny was the first one to jump in on that note. "You mean that He was answering the same questions as Jason?" He asked him in horror.

"The very same as Stonecold."

"Anthony has something to do with this?" Jason pushed himself off the wall ready to move.

"Whoa whoa..." Sonny held up his hands in defense of the action. "I'll check on the Anthony lead. You stay here with..." Sonny paused before he could force her name out knowing how much confusion still lay between them all. "Sam." He finally piped in and when Jason leveled the disbelieving gaze his way he stepped towards his friend. "She could be Sam, and you would never forgive yourself if you left her in there right now." Sonny promised him. "Even to follow up on a lead."

Jason knew he was right. It was part of what made this all so difficult. Sam had been there for him when his own memory had been lost and now here she might be in the same condition, but she might not be, that was rubbed him so wrong, every decision he was making was loaded. They were still trying to even find the reason for her current memory loss, what it was that was wrong with her and what had been done to her. He didn't want to postpone looking into whatever files Sam might have left at the apartment, but there was another lead right here to stick with, Sam or Alicia or whoever she was.

"I can work from here." Spinelli assured him, the promise in and of itself a confirmation that Jason would have the most up to date information that he could have where he was at.

"And I'll call as soon as I know anything." Sonny offered, hoping it was enough to give Jason what he needed in order to relax long enough to offer some comfort to the possible Sam beyond the curtains.

Jason was nodding slowly, thankful for their help, wishing he had more answers, but relishing this chance to possible reconnect with Sam, to help her, if it was her. God, there was a part of him that wished he'd never met Alicia, so that he could scrub his doubts, so that he could believe for one breadth of a second that a madman couldn't still have Sam.

As Sonny headed back out the door and Spinelli sank into a seat in the waiting room, bent over a small table, typing frantically, Jason made his way to Sam's cubicle only to run into Robin just exiting the curtained area that housed Sam. He felt his heart dance in anticipation of something helpful, some relief gleamed from at least knowing that Sam was alright. He couldn't escape the possibility that Sam was still out there but for right now he had to push the thought from the forefront of his thoughts and throw himself into the hope that she was truly right there with him. "How is she?" Jason asked Robin quickly.

"She's..." Robin looked up from her chart with sympathy in her eyes. "confused, Jason. Really confused. So far I don't think she remembers anything past waking up in that cell." Robin knew the situation and was sticking her neck on the line to help them keep it quiet from the police. "Patrick is still trying to trace what caused the amnesia. We found a puncture wound near her hair line just above her neck, but there isn't much to go on until we get the labs back. She doesn't seem to be suffering from any other injuries, there's barely bruising and that seems to be self induced from unsteadiness caused by the pain killers in her system. We don't even know what that is yet."

Jason swallowed tightly, taking it in, his mind reeling. It was hard enough to make it through his own life when he'd lost all context with which to hold to, the last time Sam had become his safe harbor, the one piece of his old life that he couldn't let go of. She'd helped him find his way home. He wanted to be, to do, that for her. And strange as it was he might be the only person in her life that understood what it was she was going through, temporary or not. He knew both situations intimately. "How long until you know something?"

"I've put a rush on the labs, but it's still going to be am hour or two, maybe longer on a few of the tests." Robin sighed, her frustration bleeding through.

"Can Sam go home? I mean she's stable now, right?" Jason finally asked.

"I think she should be fine, most of the stronger drugs seem to be out of her system, but I'd rather monitor her over night." Robin had a feeling that wasn't in the cards from the look in Jason's eyes.

"I can't protect her as well here. I'd rather take her home." Jason explained. "If there's any change though I'll call and we can go from there." Jason promised Robin.

Robin didn't look as receptive as he'd hoped. He'd already asked her for a lot. "I'll okay it, but you need to talk to her first. I know you didn't have much time to talk to her and she was really out of it when she made it back to the penthouse, but she needs to know more about what's happened."

"We all do, Robin." Jason scoffed. "I'll talk to her. I was about to anyway. Would you start on the paper work?"

"Yeah." Robin touched his arm lovingly, letting him know with a single glance that she was on his side and sympathetic to their plight. He watched her go on her way thankful that she was helping them.

Jason finally shifted his way through the curtain and set his gaze on Sam. She looked so small against the stark white sheets. Sam sat on the edge of the bed, her legs dangling over the side, kicking out one at a time as she was trying to burn nervous energy. Her arms held her steady against the bed. Ebony locks combed over her shoulder as she angled her neck to see who'd just walked in. In a heartbeat she pushed herself off the hospital bed and he watched as her bare feet hit the floor.

"Oh thank God." She approached as though she was relieved to see him.

For one brief moment Jason thought that maybe part of this nightmare was over.

"Jason, right?"

And with one question he was right back where he started from.

"Yeah." Jason couldn't hide the emotion in his voice, even though he tried. "You look like you're feeling better."

"I am and I want to go." Sam rushed it out as she sort of hopped from foot to the other, nervously fidgeting with her hands held at chest level. "I know I don't know anything about...well anything, but I can't stay here. I don't...There's something about here and I don't know what it is – I can't explain it."

"You're not crazy about hospitals." Jason explained. It was a trait they shared, though his feelings about it were a might stronger than Sam's. Did that mean that this was his Sam? A residual fear of hospitals a lone hint as too who he was here for? "I'm already working on it. Robin's drawing up your release forms now."

He caught her looking quizzically over his face for the longest moment before she went on. "Thanks." He gave her a nod in response not sure what to say yet. He knew they needed to talk but there was so much he wasn't sure about. "So we're...together?" She asked as she motioned back and forth between them with her right hand.

And well that was one of the questions that Jason couldn't answer. "I'm not sure." Jason looked to the floor as he cleared his throat. God Damn that bastard. "Look there was another girl being held at the same place as you and she...she could be your twin, maybe not biologically, I'm not even sure about that, but you can pass for each other. The other girl is still being held as far as we know..."

Confusion on speed dial blinked back at him. "So, I could be your girlfriend, but I might just be some freaky look a like of hers that may or may not actually be her twin sister?" Oh that didn't sound disturbing at all. "No offense but I'm not gaining a lot of confidence in trusting you this far. I mean I just left this one place where I was being held captive, caught a cab that just happened to already have the address I was supposed to go to, and then find myself surrounded by guards and you and no one wants to go to the police and hell there was blood traipsed all over your apartment to begin with..."

"Sam," Jason reached out to calm her down but she shoved his hands away and took a step back.

"You don't know what my name is any more than I do!" She rebuked him further.

What could he say to that? She was right. Still he couldn't let the air further degrade between them. "I may not know if you're Sam or Alicia and I know the situation is far from ideal, but I do know that I can protect you and I can find the answers that you need. As far as the cops go...If you're Alicia that's a good thing because you were in prison not that long ago and if you're Sam you always trusted me over the cops."

"All I have is your word on that," She swallowed tightly and Jason knew it was a lot to take on faith.

"I know you don't know it, but I have no reason to lie to you. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I can take you some where safe and make sure you have the time to heal and find the answers you need." He tried to assure her. "Either way – I'm staying with you. If you want to go somewhere you pick than I'm there."

"What if I don't want you with me?" She asked softly, though her voice harbored a wealth of uncertainty.

"Then I'll make sure you don't notice." He couldn't relent. He wasn't going to let anything else happen to her. "Where would you go?"

"I don't know."

Silence hung heavy between them, but their eyes finally found their way back to each others. Jason offered his hand, an arm length between them, reaching for her through the murky distance through the fog of memory. "Come with me..." He implored her once more and while she hesitated finally her gauze padded fingers intertwined with his.

An hour later...

Spinelli looked over this shoulder from the couch when he heard Jason's footfalls against the stairs as he made his way downstairs. Sonny had already sent in a cleaning crew and while the bathroom now looked pristine, there were whole swaths of carpet that needed to be replaced.

"How is the possible Doppelganger?" Spinelli asked as he looked back to the screen.

"Don't call her that." Jason warned sharply. He put up with a lot from Spinelli, but this was weird enough without the added nicknames. Jason came around the sofa and set a stack of folders on the table, sinking down onto the couch a cushion length between him and Spinelli. "She's asleep. Robin gave her some more medicine for the pain from the chemical burns and it wiped her out." He explained as he motioned to Spinelli's laptop. "What have you got?"

"The Jackal has been able to recover the video files from the choice." He shifted the computer over so that Jason could see the side by side reenactment of both Sam's in their cells. "It's going to take longer to trace a path to the new site."

Jason watched the footage with a tight swallow his hand tightening around the file in his hand until his knuckles turned white. "Stay on it." He finally tore his gaze away and looked to the files that he'd pulled from Sam's office. She'd had them in the safe, not with the others, confirming his suspicions that she'd been conducting an investigation into her birth parents and any connection with Alicia. It was the first file that stunned him though.

Jason set the unfurled folder down on the table his jaw slack in wonder as he looked over the files and photos, a trail of transactions and years of research that surpassed what he thought Sam could have been up to on the endeavor. "Did you know she was working on this?" Jason asked Spinelli as he motioned to the stack of papers in horror.

"I knew the fair Samantha had her personal cases." Spinelli replied in a quiet voice.

"She didn't tell you anything about it?" Jason was beginning to realize why Sam hadn't said anything to him. Hell she was probably reeling herself, if what she had put together was the case. Spinelli shook his head his eyes darkening in worry as Jason exhaled sharply and he pushed a picture across the table to Spinelli before getting to his feet. "Sam, found her biological father."

Spinelli's eye darted to the picture frantically as if it would somehow clear up everything, but it didn't do that at all. All it did was open up a completely new can of worms. Spinelli's jaw dropped in utter shock when his eyes lit on the picture of Anthony Zaccharra that Jason slid across the table to him.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks so much for the reviews. This chapter is rated at least PG -13. Read with caution. _

**Chapter Three**

Jason wasn't sure which hit to take first. At first glance he was simply praying that some how Sam's investigation was...misleading, but the more he looked into it the more he was getting a horribly bad feeling about all of this. He was still scrambling to find out where Alicia fit in...Sam had financial ties stemming from Anthony to Allegra Montenegro for a few months before she was born and then a continued interaction about once a year after that seen in money transfers and yearly vacations in Monte Carlo...

Jason flipped the page and frowned seeing that Sam's adoptive parents also made the same trip, though the payouts seemed to be much less. What the hell was going on? And what did this have to do with the kidnapping? There had to be something here. He looked up when Spinelli tossed him his cell, still ringing when he caught it. "Yeah." Jason rasped out as he heard Spinelli's typing resume.

"Alicia Montenegro escaped almost two weeks ago." Sonny replied immediately.

Jason got to his feet, eyes closing as his fears were confirmed. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't an escape." Jason stated the obvious as he paced, trying to think of how to explain the rest of what he'd found to Sonny. "Sam was doing an investigation into her biological family. From what I can tell from her files it's possible that Anthony Zacchara could be her father."

"That's ridiculous." Sonny couldn't hide the nervous laugh that erupted before he could contain it. "I mean listen to yourself. Alexis was 16 – Anthony is old enough to be her father. I mean I know the guys insane but..."

"What, too composed to take advantage of or rape a teenager..." Jason pointed out the flaw in Sonny's rhetoric. "Sam's got a statement from a nurse that was working at the clinic where Alexis gave birth. She said that Alexis confided under heavy sedation that she couldn't remember the conception. The nurse also said that Alexis gave birth to twins. The nurse seemed to think that Alexis wasn't aware that she was even carrying twins she also said a man paid her and the doctor to falsify the birth certificates and to lie about the birth."

"Why the sudden willingness to spill it now then?" Sonny asked skeptically.

"She's dying." Jason replied evenly. "Apparently the whole situation always weighed on her and she's looking to unburden herself of guilt."

"So she's not worried about the repercussions. I can see that." Sonny went on. "I thought you said that Alexis's father forced her to give Sam...okay Sam and Alicia up for adoption."

"Right. So Anthony couldn't claim them, married at the time, but he wants to stay in their lives. He arranges the actual adoptions and keeps tabs on them over the years?" Jason reasoned out as best he could, his mind swirling with all the possibilities.

"It's feasible. Crazy but feasible." Sonny remarked. "So the kidnapper dug up the same dirt that Sam had. He knew they were twins and that Anthony was the father. Then he sets it up for you and Anthony to play some sick game to determine what happens to the girls." Sonny offered his own logic trying to draw it all into the bigger picture. "Why?"

That was the question of the hour.

"I don't know." Jason raked his fore finger and thumb over his brow line and closed his eyes once more. "It could be for revenge. But why both of us? We need to talk to Anthony." Jason didn't relish the idea but it was the best lead they had now. He knew Sonny had been working on locating Anthony and really hoped he had some good news for him. "Where is he?"

There was a long pause before Sonny answered the question. "I have it on good authority that he's on his way back into town from New York. I've got men waiting to pick him up." Sonny assured him. "Has Sam or whoever you've got, remembered anything yet?"

"No and she's getting some sleep, now. Robin's still waiting on some test results before we even know what's happened to her. She said that it could be as simple as the effects of some drug wearing off or it could be traumatic and it might take more time." Jason paced another lap around the living room to the background typing that ever filled the room. "What about the missing guards...anything on them?" Jason asked worriedly. There was some hope that the other three hadn't shared in the same fate as Amos, that they weren't part of the mess that the clean up crew had take care of in the bathroom.

"I still have nothing. The video feed from the surrounding security cameras was compromised." Sonny replied frustration bleeding ever word. "How the hell is this guy skirting all our security?"

"I think because he's been planning this for a long time. He waited to strike until there was nothing to be on guard about." Jason leaned back against the wall, shifting his gaze between the front door and the staircase. Jason jumped and looked back to Spinelli when music suddenly flooded through the laptop speakers and he floundered to staunch the noise, quickly lowering the volume as fear lit his eyes. Jason knew in an instant the the computer wizard had something.

He pushed himself off the wall in Spinelli's direction listening to the eerie rockish industrial music that permeated the immediate area. "The Jackal's found the next site." Spinelli's voice had dipped low in horror as he watched the screen, unable to look away, and Jason felt his own heart riddled with terror just from the look on his friends face on his approach.

"_Hands cover whispers of the lovers fright, fear cloaked renditions of that autumn night, digging up rumors of the kids in the park. What awful things happened in the dark?" _

Jason's gaze fell over the screen as a video started playing to the music. It was short clips strewn together as some sort of intro page to the site that they were trying to get into. The first clip was of the Sam still captive sitting on a chair looking right into the camera talking, but there was no sound. Jason narrowed his eyes trying to make out what she was saying just by watching her lips, but it was hard to tell. Then there was a flash and the video was replaced with one of the guards that was missing, Justin, scrambling frantically away from whoever had the camera. Justin was on hands and knees, obviously injured as Jason could see that blood was trailing from an unrecognizable wound from his left leg.

"_Take just one last dare, pretend you don't care til twilight falls. Wait, is someone else here? And I can't stop my tears. I've never been so scared."_

"God, mute the music." Jason cursed under his breath as there was another flash and the video was of captive Sam sleeping curled up on a concrete floor.

"What music, what's going on?" Sonny asked worriedly on the phone.

"Spinelli found the next site. I'll call you back." Jason ended the call looking to Spinelli expectantly as the music was still filtering through the speakers.

"If I try to circumvent the nightmare sound styling the video will cease to play." Spinelli replied in frustration a moment later after trying what he could to fulfill the request.

The video was now cycling through various pictures of all the missing guards minus Amos and captive Sam. It was the pictures of the guards that had Jason cringing every time the pictures and video changed over. They were being shown in various stages of attack and torture. Sam meanwhile seemed to be in perfect condition save the part where she was being held by a madman.

"_In the cellar buried six feet deep, the lovers shaking from a dreamless sleep. Nail's clawing splinters from the ceiling and floor, shrieking like the witches til his stitches are sore."_

Spinelli pushed himself to his feet in horror at the next video snapshot of Justin dying before their eyes, his body a testament of the demented ways that the killer could show his cruelty. "Wh...why..." He choked out as Jason sank into his seat unable to hide the disgust as he continued to watch.

"He's sending a message." Jason explained, wishing he didn't understand what it was or that Justin and Amos didn't have to pay with their lives so that it could be delivered.

"What kind of...si...sick..." Spinelli looked like he was about to be sick.

"He needs everyone to understand what he's capable of before he makes his demands." Jason swallowed tightly as he watched the pictures and video continue to filter through.

"_Calling for the other, searching for her lover. Secrets she discovers drain her face of color..."_

The video suddenly flashed to live feed and Jason jumped to his feet his breath hitched in his throat.

"Spinelli!" Jason was trying to move as he watched in horror, trying to let the computer guru work his magic.

Somewhere in a dimly lit room Sam was being held in some sort if flooded cage the camera angled over her as she clung to the crisscross bars of rebar welded together to form a grid too small for her to squeeze through. She had wrapped both arms around the top of the cage and was panting as she held tight, fighting to keep her face angled against the bars in an attempt to utilize the two inches of space she had left to breath in between her and the bars.

The music faded to a stop, but there was no other sound from the video feed. Apparently the intro was over and it was on to the main show. Words began to appear with the typewrite sound as they had on the first site. Spinelli slipped back into his seat as Jason moved to get a good look from behind him, leaning over the couch.

"**Are you ready for the next round?"** The screen implored them.

"Oh Goddess." Spinelli cried out when he saw Sam - Spinelli looked over his shoulder at Jason in horror.

"Pick yes." Jason didn't need to see another man killed because he was trying to be stubborn. He could play along to a point, especially when he had no other choices. He waited for the usual thank you for choosing the right decision and let out a measured breath. "Is anyone else playing along?"

"I'm checking..." Spinelli whispered as more words were being spelled out.

"**Answer the questions correctly to lower the water level. Answer the questions incorrectly to raise it."**

Jason blinked in horror. "What? She doesn't have enough room for us to be wrong..." He raked a hand over his face as he waited for the questions to roll in, wishing he had this guy in his clutches right now.

"I can see that." Spinelli cried back at him. "Anthony is playing along." He added as more words lit the screen.

"**Who is Sam McCall and Alicia Montenegro's biological father?" **

**A. Cody McCall**

**B. Anthony Zacchara**

**C. David Porter **

"Why would he ask that?" Spinelli asked in wonder as he looked read the question.

Jason didn't like where this was going. "He wants to know how far along we are all as far as figuring this whole thing out. Which means he gets no satisfaction from the whole ordeal unless we know why it's happening. It's part of the game itself." Jason reasoned out. "B."

Jason wasn't sure what would happen if Anthony answered incorrectly and he prayed that he didn't get any ideas about trying to deny his lineage at this point. Jason crossed his arms over his chest and brought his right hand to his lips as he watched in agonizing impatience, only letting out a relieved breath when the water level suddenly plunged by a foot, leaving Sam dangling from the top of the cage. He watched with a sharp exhale as she lowered her body into the water and swam a few feet to the side of the cage to get more comfortable. God how long had she been in there already?

"**Who died on May 5****th****, 2001?"**

**A. Felicia Espinoza**

**B. Benita Coronado**

**C. Maria Espinoza**

Jason narrowed his eyes looking over the list of names, racking his brain as he tried to recall any of them. He closed his eyes as if it might help the memory of a face form in the blanket of darkness. God he didn't have any recollection of any of the women in his immediate memory stores so he was combing back through the more dusty collections, trying frantically to kick off the cob webs.

"I don't know..." Jason got out in a rush. He couldn't even place the names let alone any connection with the date. "I don't..." Jason breathed the words as more words a long with a timer appeared on the screen.

"**You're partner made their choice. You have ten seconds to do the same. If both answers are correct the water level drops by one foot. If either is incorrect the water level rises by one foot."**

A timer popped up on the right lower corner of the screen and Jason floundered inside his own mind, tears rimming his eyes. 2001, 2001, 2001...Espinoza, Sonny's rival – something about a family in Columbia.

"5 seconds,"Spinelli called out in earnest.

Jason waved him off with a growl trying to remember this guys name, his wife, someone related. He was close to having to guess and he knew it and it was eating him alive. At this point he felt like he had a fifty percent chance but hell that wasn't good enough, not with the possibility that Sam's life was on the line.

"3"

"Shut up..." Jason looked over the list as if somehow looking at the names was going to spark something...anything...God, Please.

"1"

"Maria Espinoza." Jason couldn't tear his eyes from the screen the words coming out before he could even think. It was a guess, a guess that has him rendered speechless as Spinelli pressed the appropriate letter and they both watched. There was a moment a mere moment where Jason thought he might be able to breath a sigh of relief that he'd guessed correctly but then what if Anthony hadn't known either. Let the water go down...let it go down.

Jason choked in a breath when he saw water bubbling up from the middle and Sam suddenly engulfed under the water, fighting her way back to the top. Her arms slammed into the grid at the top before she got them through scraped raw and she managed to pull herself up high enough to spit out a mouth full of water, gasping in a breath.

"Son of a bitch!" Jason screamed knocking a vase from the table across the room with one fell swipe. He knew that there was as much a chance that that wasn't Sam in there as there was that she was upstairs in his bed, but no one deserved this! He could already hear the typing of the next message as he whirled on Spinelli. "Do you know where the hell this guy is?"

"The Jackal is still trying to trace the address. It's being routed all over the world!" Spinelli cried back as he looked in shell shocked horror at Sam now wrapping herself around the bars once more, screaming something through the bars.

**Who killed Felicia Espinoza?" **

**A. Jason Morgan**

**B. Anthony Zacchara**

**C. Sonny Corinthos**

"I didn't kill her and I know Sonny didn't order the hit." Jason got out immediately.

"How.." Spinelli started but Jason cut him off.

"I remember everyone I've killed." Jason promised him grimly. "B."

"You think the Brutal Mob Boss will incriminate himself?" Spinelli worried aloud as he continued trying to track the mastermind of this horror show.

"I don't know..." Jason's hopes that he had this one right were dashed by Spinelli's doubts that Anthony would admit to guilt and if he had killed this girl then it had to be a large part of the reason that this was all happening. Too much time was passing...they must have been waiting on Anthony. Jason licked at his lips nervously, palming his hand over his mouth and chin as he watched Sam trying to get comfortable near the top of the cage once more.

"NO!" Jason suddenly screamed as the water began to bubbled around Sam's face and then completely covered her head rising a foot over the bars. "Spinelli!"

"I...I...I can't...I I'm not in...his system and even...I can't control..." Spinelli sputtered out in horror. The sound of the typing that sounded next was torture as Jason waited for the question, praying that he knew the answer, his only way to help right now. He couldn't look away from her, fighting against the bars, fighting for breath, for life.

"**Who was supposed to die in her place?" **

**A. Alarico Espinoza**

There were no other options, nothing. Jason swallowed tightly and nodded for Spinelli to press the letter as he prayed that that meant that he was going to let Sam live, if she was Sam. Jason recognized the name. He'd been asked to kill him at one time and couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of him a moment ago at the hint of the last name that was given.

They both watched on pins and needles as the water receded so fast, too fast, Sam was in a whirl pool fighting to catch her breath as she floundered until it all funneled out and she slammed into the concrete bottom of the cell on her back, rendered unconscious in a heart beat.

Jason was fuming as the screen faded to black and letters raced across the screen.

"**You have 48 hours to find your target. Before the following becomes her fate."**

Jason and Spinelli were tuned in to the screen when suddenly video of Roy and Harris, the last two missing guards, crossed the screen in shades of macabre that twisted even a hit man's stomach.

"Oh Gosss.." Spinelli fled the room his wretches sounding from the kitchen at Jason's back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_I really appreciate the reviews. Thanks so much :) _

Waking was a bitch. "God," She flinched at the sudden onslaught of pain radiating through her head as consciousness descended on her like a baseball bat to her temple. A groan escaped her lips as she forced her agonized body to move. The last thing she remembered was dangling from the top of the cage as the water swooshed out. Slamming into darkness was just the end result. "Holy hell..." Sam McCall blinked in the dim light that filtered through the small room she found herself awkwardly flung into. She felt fear waver in past the pain as she realized that she was laying in a sea of hard plastic body parts.

Sam tried to push herself up only to miss connecting with a solid mannequin arm and her arm slipped into the pile, sending her sinking like she was in a child's ball cage. At this point it would have been more comforting, but sinking into lifeless bodies was a little disheartening at the moment. After a fight for nearly five minutes she finally was able to get to her feet and wade through the knee high mess. A lone door lay open, but only darkness greeted from the expanse beyond. Sam stopped inches away, holding herself steady against the door frame.

She'd been at a loss ever since she was grabbed in the parking deck where she'd been waiting to tail a supposed missing woman. Some guy had hired her to find his daughter, Felicia. The trail was a challenge but she'd finally found a possible contender. A friend of a friend who maybe knew something. The whole case was weird though. Like she was missing a much larger piece of the puzzle. Little did she know the whole thing was a set up. Mr. Espinoza, Alarico, he said she could call him, was the one that had her kidnapped.

Dammit when she got her hands on him...Sam had never thought that he was going to turn out to be some freaky serial something. When she'd met him he was the epitamy of a loving father at a loss for the loss of his only daughter. She'd sympathized with him. She never in a million years though that any one could fake what she saw in his eyes when he came pleading for her to find Felicia. Then when she thought she almost had something it was revealed that he planned on kidnapping her. Nothing about it made sense, yet.

She was looking forward to getting to the bottom of it, right before she escaped preferably. She was already curious about the cameras. If she was missing something and he was using them for more than just his own historical reference than that meant that someone else was watching. He didn't seem that concerned with what she was saying though as she had practically given directions to the first place he'd taken her, while he had her in a sit down asking her questions about Jason and...Anthony.

Sam swallowed tightly, feeling horrible about not having told Jason about what she'd found. Part of the reason was that she wasn't exactly thrilled, that after careful consideration she was almost set against trying to forge a relationship there. It was almost like pretending she'd never learned the truth could some how make it not so. She had her mother and her sisters and that had turned into a wonderful dream come true. She supposed that she thought that finding her father wouldn't leave such a bad taste in her mouth. Now of coarse she wished that she'd told Jason, that and the fact that she possibly had a twin sister that was in prison for murder.

She definitely hadn't wanted to open Alicia's can of worms considering the last time she'd seen her she'd tried to frame her for murder. Sam had closed the files and decided not to give them another look, but now they were coming back to bite her in the ass. If this had something to do with Anthony and Jason then she was sure that Jason was going to find out about her investigation. That was probably the least of her worries at the moment though...

Sam knew this was some psycho's game. She wasn't sure exactly what the rules were or who all the players were, but she knew that her survival was dependent on factors she hadn't been privy to yet. She knew that the was kidnapped, but she hadn't seen anyone else, except Alarico and even that was only once or twice, most of his communication with her was through an intercom, barking orders, like she was some sort of dog.

She was through taking orders.

Sam looked behind her at the room she was in, the weird shape to the walls, the lack luster LED lighting, no windows. The air itself was musty, recycled. The first things that came to mind was a submersible, but there was no sway to the whole of the structure. She was pretty sure that she was underground. Sam picked up a mannequin leg and held it at the ready, glad for the weapon, as unconventional as it might be. She peered into the darkened corridor beyond the doorway and hitched in a breath, not liking that she seemed to be on her own now. What was the plan? What lay beyond the door? What was this psycho up to?

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Memory was a sketchy thing...

Alicia looked from her face in the mirror as dawn crested over the city's skyline, rose kissed warmth giving her skin a hued glow as she looked from her reflection to the framed picture of Jason and Sam sitting on the dresser. She hadn't faked the amnesia. She really couldn't remember anything when she'd fallen asleep with Jason at her side the night before. She'd never seen real love until she looked into his eyes without her tainted stereotype of the black hearts of lovers. It was enough to make her question everything she thought she knew, now newly restored upon waking.

It wasn't just that she didn't want to go back to prison that had spurred her now newly forming plan. There was more too it, much more. It was the way he looked at her, her broken beliefs, needing a fresh start, to be someone else. And it helped him, right? Sam was gone, possibly dead. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it so that no one could tell them a part. She could heal the hurt, she could be Sam. No one would lose her. They'd be spared. It was a good thing and even if it didn't last, she would still be loved for a little while, right?

Alicia had gone through everything in the room, photo albums, anything of Sam's that she could find, including a small journal that she'd found stuffed in Sam's nightstand drawer. She looked into the mirror once more and licked at her lips as she surveyed the worn jeans, that had seen better days but despite their threadbare knees had been kept in a host of more willing candidates. She deemed them Sam's favorite. She'd picked out the black off the shoulder shirt that she'd seen in a photo of Sam paired with the favorite pair of jeans and then taken the picture into the bathroom to aid her in fixing her make up correctly.

Alicia made sure everything was put back like it was in the room before she headed down the stairs ready to play the roll of Sam McCall.

The front entrance was like a mad house, however, and Alicia stopped where the stairs angled the last flight into the room...

"Alarico Espinoza," Jason paced across the room, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he held his cell to his ear.

_' The man who held me ?' _Alicia hadn't known a thing about what this was all about. She'd thought he was heaven sent when he broke her out of prison, but that all changed pretty quickly. She realized that it was a kidnapping and could have sworn that someone was going to try and squeeze Allegra out of some of the money she'd made from Andrew's fortune. She knew a little while later that it was something different though.

The guy asked her about Anthony Zacchara and he'd been less then thrilled when she'd asked him who the hell he was talking about. Then all of a sudden she'd thought her luck was about to change when the cell door had opened and she'd been allowed to walk out. Yeah walk out right into a large room with a chair where she was tied up and drugged to hell and back so that the bastard and his cronies could burn her fingerprints off and mar her body. She supposed she shouldn't be shuddering at the idea considering it had turned out to be her get out of jail free card. She hadn't even known they had Sam until Alarico let her go...

"It would have been in May of 2001." Jason continued. There was a gaggle of other voices mingling with his as Alicia simply stood there assessing the situation.

Sonny Corinthos, who she only knew from a captioned picture in the album upstairs, crossed Jason's path, having a completely different conversation on his cell phone. "Look I don't want there to be a fire fight. Just tell Anthony that if it makes him feel better I'll send Max to pick him up, but I can't let this go and I'm not putting myself out there so he can take me out. If he won't do this quietly, we can make it into something, but I think he understands that his daughters lives are at stake, not that that ever mattered to him before." Sonny scoffed as he took a deep breath and stopped pacing in favor of leaning on the desk near the door. "Yeah you do that..." He looked to Jason and have him a nod to let him know that Anthony was on his way.

Sonny got off the phone just as the home phone began to ring. Jason looked up and frowned in frustration before he said a quick. "Hold on a minute." Jason met Sonny's eyes and they both gave a nod as he tossed the cell he'd just been talking on to Sonny and crossed the room to get to the home phone. Sonny picked up the conversation with ease.

"Espinoza, yeah. Had some major holdings in Guatemala, was running imports of coffee into the Port Charles in 2001..." Sonny took over as Jason answered the phone on the desk.

"That's great news, Robin." Alicia caught Jason's relief as he talked to the doctor she'd met earlier when her memory was still out to lunch or for a midnight snack more appropriately. "Thanks for giving me a call. So what does that mean for her memory?" Alicia tensed wishing she knew what was being said on the other side of the conversation. She took his growing frown to mean that the doctor didn't have any answers to that question, at least none that he liked. Which was good if only for her ruse. "No, I understand. I still really appreciate it."

Alicia tucked I her bottom lip as he hung up the phone and turned just in time to catch her eyes, the first one of the mob of people working to sort all of this out to realize that she was up and standing there on the steps. Well this was it, now or never. "Jason," She tried to remember the inflection she'd heard in Sam's voice all those years ago, before she was lost to a life inside a jail cell, when she'd briefly known Sam and Jason from her old life. She tried to remember the way she'd looked at him, the way she said his name. Tried to mirror it back to him as she rushed down the stairs and flung her arms around his shoulders, trying to be anybody but her old self, the one who pushed everyone away, held the whole world at arms length. She knew that Jason wasn't the only person she had to put this show on for though and tried to just convince herself to go with it, to just be Sam. She closed her eyes, breathing him in, let out a breath in relief when his tension melted and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body tight against his.

"Sam?" He asked in shock and wonder, his voice breaking as he choked out her name, so every hopeful. Sam could feel other eyes on her as Sonny continued with his conversation at her back and Spinelli's typing slowed to an almost nonexistent clatter. He didn't pull away until she pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, her hands trailing from the back of his neck to cup his face as she stretched onto her tip toes to maintain her hold.

"I don't remember everything, just a few little..." Alicia prattled out. She needed any confusion or not so great recognition to be covered by the possibility that she had only a partial recovery. "I remembered us, you and me, there this..." Alicia narrowed her eyes as she looked past him, as if trying to peer into her own mind, when she was really trying to remember the details of the picture and journal notes she had chosen to be the one memory that would bring Sam back to Jason. " We were hiking...I made a horrible meal because you were going away..." Alicia left out a lot of the details for a moment. "You were going to prison..." She met his eyes once more. "We made love in the cabin..."

She could see the hope, the relief, and prayed it was enough to keep him from pushing for more right now.

"Thank God, Sam." Jason pulled her back to him and Alicia breathed out in relief against his chest as she likewise returned the embrace. "Robin, said it might be be slow and fractured, coming back, but it is coming back."

"Looks like." Alicia smiled and one might have mistaken that smile for Sam's relief, but it was Alicia's joy that her plan was working, and she was rejoicing in Jason's love for Sam, his love for her.

"Fair Samantha?" Jason pulled back as she heard another voice calling to her and Alicia reminded herself that she better get used to answering to Sam's name as she looked back over her shoulder to see the computer geek getting all teary eyed as he rose from the couch and looked hopeful in her direction, looking for some sort of recognition in her eyes.

"Spinelli, right? My business partner?" It was a good thing Sam wrote about her life or Alicia might have had no chance of pulling this off.

"Yes!" Spinelli suddenly rushed then both of them and hugged Sam, squishing her between himself and Jason who still had a partial hold on her.

It wasn't until Spinelli caught Jason's glare and Alicia managed to get out a gasp of "Can't breath," that he released her.

"So so sorry. The Jackal was too overcome to take into account your need for respiration."

"Well you need to back off a little, she's still addled, Spinelli." Jason chastised him as he kept a protective arm around her and steered her to the couch. "Here, get comfortable, you want something to eat? We had breakfast brought up."

"I don't right now. I'm a little woozy." That wasn't a lie. The pain meds keeping the pain from the chemical burns manageable was definitely working it's magic. She sank onto the couch as Sonny was getting off the phone. It was getting more and more interesting in here. Spinelli reclaimed his seat in excitement as he stole glances of her in between ogling his laptop. Jason towered over her looking as if he was now at a loss for what to do. "I'll get you some water then."

Alicia caught his hand before he went, meeting his eyes with a soft smile. "Thank you." She whispered, trying to shed years of breeding for the more simplistic life, hell anything was better then prison.

He bore a hint of smile in return before he slipped his hand from hers and made his way to get her something to drink. Alicia jumped when the front door suddenly slammed open. "I am not one of your subjects that you can beckon to your court, Sonny." Anthony called as he passed through the threshold in the company of several of Sonny's men. "I've come at your request simply because we have similar interests concerning the matter." He clarified his presence with a look of disdain in Sonny's direction.

Before Sonny could get a word in and just as Jason was returning from the kitchen with the glass of water Spinelli suddenly garnered the room's attention with a " The Jackal has discovered the next site set up in the virtual dominoes of sites that the Blackhearted One has erected!" Everyone gathered around the lap top to see Sam crawling out of pile of mannequin parts and into a black hallway, before the camera changed and night vision lit the darkness in hues of green to show her feeling her way down the hallway, holding a mannequin leg as a weapon.

What lay before her was anyone's guess...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_Thanks for all the feedback guys! I soo appreciate it. There's no more tree in my kitchen! Yippie! Hope everyone enjoys this chapter!_

**3 hours previous...**

Jason walked through the front door of the penthouse with purpose, the SD chip from his digital camera clutched in the palm of his hand. He paused door half open, free hand poised to close it as his gaze fell on Johnny Zacchara rising from the couch next to Spinelli. "What are you doing here?"

"I called him." Sonny rounded the corner from the kitchen. "He handles his father better than any of us." He explained. "And he has a stake in this."

"I'm not thrilled about everyone finding out this way, it's obvious that Sam wasn't sure what she wanted to do." Jason sighed as he made his way into the room. "Here are the photos of the parking deck." He tossed the chip to Spinelli. Jason had gone through Sam's current case file and tracked her last few hours with Spinelli's help, finally locating her car. He hoped that there was something on the photos that could help them locate her. Jason wasn't about to jump for joy that Johnny was on board to help, but they could use another set of eyes and ears. "You can go through the parking deck photos if you're that gung-ho to help out."

"Sure." Johnny nodded. "Listen, I understand Sam's reluctance to admit being my father's daughter, better than anyone. But it also means that she's my sister, her and Alicia, and I want to do whatever I can to help."

Jason and Johnny shared a rare moment of common interest as Jason saw the true heartfelt concern in Johnny's eyes. "I appreciate that." Jason pointed him to Spinelli. "This will help. The photos are from the parking deck where Sam was kidnapped. I've already gone over them but a fresh pair of eyes would be a help."

"Sure," Johnny took the chip from Spinelli and headed to the computer on the desk near the door.

Jason looked to Sonny to see where they had gotten while he was gone. "Espinoza had a lot of contacts with some of the same people that we do business with. I've been working with my sources. Mario told me that Alarico's son graduated MIT with a Masters in Engineering in Computer Science. He's probably the guy helping him with this computer stuff that Spinelli's having such a hard time with."

"Do they own any land here?" The more he learned the more he hated this man.

"Not outright, I'm waiting to hear back from Frances about a chapter of the Felicia Foundation that was supposed to have made a home here. He's working on getting me an address." Sonny explained.

"What about you?" Jason looked to Spinelli.

"The Jackal is following the crumbs meant to lead to the Blackhearted One's next game." Spinelli explained clearly frustrated with how long it was taking him to get through.

"Obviously they knew we had you, so they're making it more difficult for us. I'm sure Anthony isn't having the same problem." Jason sighed. "He's keeping you occupied so you can't do any real damage Spinelli."

Spinelli looked up in alarm as it settled in what was actually going on. "Perhaps I should..." Jason cut him off.

"No, you do what you're doing. We need to see his next play, the faster the better." Jason reasoned.

Jason remembered the order for the hit all those years ago. It was one of those situations that uncannily resolved itself. Unfortunately, he was never quite clear on how. Alarico came to town to settle on his father's behest. He was planning on using Port Charles as a point of access in order to peddle product into New York city. Sonny and Anthony didn't need any more attention being drawn to Port Charles, as the place was barely big enough for the both of them already. Sonny ordered the hit the same night that Anthony decided to take matters into his own hands.

Jason wasn't sure what happened but a week later, Alarico was gone, headed south of the border to lick his wounds in the safety of his own empire. Jason never knew that he'd lost someone because of the hit. Whatever happened was kept quiet.

Jason sighed and looked to Sam's laptop set up beside Spinelli. "Is this set with the footage?" He asked him as he came around to sink onto the couch. Spinelli was supposed to have set the laptop up with the footage that Alarico had given them so far. The video of Alicia and Sam in individual cells, the montage of a site intro before the last game, and of course the near drowning.

"It is." Spinelli looked ill at the though, obviously not relishing the idea of going back over it.

"Alright lets get to it..."

Sonny's voice fell to a lull behind them as Spinelli continued his search for the trail of Alarico's next game. Johnny and Jason's more sporadic typing joined into the easy meandering sounds of the desperate as they worked to find what would lead them to saving Sam.

Jason was growing more and more sure that the woman still in the clutched of their madman was Sam. He could only pray that it wasn't just wishful thinking. So many of the little details, the way she moved, the way she spoke. He couldn't hear her, but watching her, it was Sam. He'd been around Alicia enough all those years ago to know she may look like Sam, but they were worlds a part in every other way.

It was the near drowning footage that further convinced him that he was watching Sam. He'd replayed it several times and finally turned it to Sonny and Johnny for another set of opinions. "Watch this and tell me what you think?" They were quickly converging on dawn, hours having passed while they toiled with their tasks. Sonny peered over the back of the couch and Johnny made his way over to get a better look.

They all watched as the water suddenly started to rise again, the first rise that took Sam back to her starting position for the game. "See that..." Jason motioned to the screen where Sam calmly pushed herself down into the water to ride the wave to the top of the cage. "She comfortable in water. She's reacting like a diver."

"Sam used to do salvage work, right?" Johnny asked quickly.

"Right." Sonny replied not sure he was seeing the same thing as Jason. "I'm not sure that you're not seeing what you want to."

"Sonny, if I was seeing what I wanted to see then I'd be trying to convince myself that Sam is already here, not still lost and alone with that sadistic bastard. I'm saying she's reacting like a diver and I want to know if you see the same thing." Jason retorted tiredly, frustration edged in hard in his voice.

"I can see what you mean." Sonny nodded. "What's not to say that Alicia doesn't have some of the same hobbies though."

"I seriously doubt that Alicia was into diving."

"Not for profit but lots of people do it recreational." Sonny was playing devils advocate and despite the sting Jason was grateful.

"I think it's Sam. It's more than the diving. Little things about the way she's talking and moving. I know there isn't sound but I know Sam." Jason let out a long sigh.

"I know you do." Sonny's voice dropped sadly, conveying the empathy that he shared with his friend over all this heartache and confusion. "I'm sure the whole point of making them indiscernible was to keep everyone playing. If you don't know if Sam is really gone or not then you're still in." Sonny sighed. "He doesn't want anyone to skip out before the finale."

"There's not chance of that anyway." Jason met Sonny's eyes. "This isn't over until Alarico can't hurt anyone else."

"For what it's worth, your gut's gotten you in and out of a lot places over the years, if you feel like this is Sam I think there's something to it." Johnny steered them back around as he motioned to the computer he'd been working at. "I think I've got something."

Jason got to his feet and followed Johnny over to the pictures of the parking deck that he'd been going through. "The flower left in the driver seat is a Japanese magnolia. There's a grove of them near the cabin we keep at Lookout Point."

"That's too easy. Surely it can't be that simple." Jason frowned. "How long has it been in the family?"

"Long enough that my Father could have been using it when this all went down ten years ago." Johnny explained. "Come to think of it we never used it much after that time."

"We should take a ride out there." Jason was already grabbing his keys and readying a gun at the small of his back. He looked back to Sonny and Spinelli. "Call me if you find anything out."

The cabin was a bust. Not only was it vacant but the cabin itself had been demolished. The grove was still there standing like a strange fairy ring reserved for giants a large expanse left bare save a lone rock where one could sit and admire the scenery. Finding nothing did little to raise Jason's spirits and he threw himself back into trying to find out what he could as soon as they walked back through the door.

"Alarico Espinoza." Sonny had given Jason the name of a friend of a friend who helped Espinoza set up when he got to Port Charles. Jason paced the apartment hand clenched around his neck, the other holding the cell steady as he moved. "It would have been May 2001."

"I'm looking through the files now. It may take a moment." Jason held on as he listened to rustling paper in the background. "I've got a Pablo Espinoza, but that was some years before."

Jason could hear Sonny laying into his men who were having trouble dealing with Anthony but that call was soon over and right in time, because the home phone was ringing. Jason caught a nod from Sonny and tossed him the phone so that he could answer the home phone. It was the first measure of relief that he'd had since all this began the night before.

"I've got good new and better news." Robin piped in after his arbitrary salutation. "All the blood work looks good. Aside from the chemical burns which should heal in time and if you follow the course of medication and treatment as prescribed, she looks in good health."

Jason closed his eyes and breathed out in sweet relief. Finally some good news. "That's great news, Robin." He could see that Johnny was also breathing a sigh of relief, betraying just how serious he was already taking this brother thing. "Thanks for giving me a call. So what does this mean for her memory?"

" The amnesia should be wearing off pretty soon. The drugs and trauma are the probable causes. The stuff in her system is usually used as anesthesia and it can cause a lot of weird effects that coupled with what she's been through and it's a wonder she's as in tact as she is. If it doesn't start coming back soon don't get alarmed, there is a chance that it might take time. Jason, there's something else I have to tell you. We did some scans and while I really need a more in depth look to be sure, everything I've seen so far isn't showing any scar tissue where there should have been some. The kind of ordeals Sam has lived through can't be erased superficially and the woman who we treated hasn't been through any of them. I wish it was Sam, Jason."

Jason just happened to catch who he now was more certain then ever was Alicia's eye. "No, I understand. I still really appreciate it." They said their goodbyes and he realized all at once that this could be something much more than he anticipated. Chemical burns were a small price to pay to beat a life sentence for a murder rap. Alicia was pretending to be Sam. It might not have been obvious to everyone else in the room, but he noticed the little details. He'd been paying attention to even the most minute of details for hours now. It felt natural now. Alicia had decorated herself to mirror Sam to the letter. She'd even managed to find her favorite jeans.

"Jason," He couldn't believe that she almost got the inflection right and for one single moment he almost thought that he and Robin had gotten it wrong when she flung her arms around his shoulders and pressed her body against his. Jason closed his eyes, breathing her in. It wasn't her, it felt like her, but it wasn't her. He stood there tense and awkward but he finally resolved to play along in order to gain her trust. He needed to know if she was in on this with Alarico and he didn't think asking out right was going to get him anywhere, considering how much effort she was currently putting into pretending to be Sam. The only way this worked for her was if Sam was dead and that meant the chances of her working with Alarico were good.

"Sam?" Now it was his chance to be the con. He listened to her prattle off her stuttered memories wondering if she'd ransacked their room to try and delve into Sam's place or not or if she'd been studying her for months waiting for this moment. He tried to react as he would if Sam was really right there but it was so hard to bypass all the anger brimming inside him. Spinelli made it that much easier when he quickly bought into the charade.

It wasn't until he had her situated on the couch and had disappeared into the kitchen that he was finally able to take a breath and let out his shock and disappointment that Sam was now confirmed in his heart to still be in danger. Jason wished he could take it out on the wall or the counter without raising suspicion but he finally buried the anger and got fake Sam a glass of water. It was about that time that he heard Anthony, the man everyone had been waiting to question, finally made his entrance and Spinelli simultaneously found the next site.

Jason walked back out of the kitchen with the water joining the crowd at Spinelli's back as they all laid eyes on Sam walking into darkness with what looked like a large plastic leg as her only weapon. '_That's my girl.' _Jason thought to himself hiding the smile of pride at her spirit.

"So your the one that's been playing along?" Anthony asked Jason but as everyone his eyes were glued to the screen.

"I am." Jason replied evenly. "And I'd like to cut right through all the formalities. We all know that you're Sam and Alicia's biological father." He caught the hitched in breath from Alicia, signifying yet another indicator that she wasn't Sam. "And it more than a little obvious that this game has something to do with Alarico and Felicia Espinoza and the hit that you put out on him in 2001."

"Kudos to you, Morgan." Anthony smiled brightly clapping his hand against Jason's shoulder as if he was giving him props for figuring that much out. "You might make a good son in law yet." Jason grabbed his hand and bent it back until Anthony cried out in pain. "Alright, alright. I see you're not in the spirit for jest."

"The only spirit I'm in is fact finding. What the hell happened in May of 2001?" Jason retorted funneling all the anger from Alicia trying to con him and needing to play along coupled with his rage at this fucking monster that still had Sam into pushing Anthony bodily into the wall, his forearm pressed against Anthony's throat.

"Jason," Johnny whirled fear coating his voice, but it wasn't for his father's safety.

"I've got this." Jason called him down instantly, but Johnny moved to intercept Jason should he need to pull him off his father. Sonny likewise was moving, leaving Spinelli and Alicia as the only ones watching the footage of Sam now playing out.

"I think what my son was trying to say was, you catch more flies with honey." Anthony grimaced out with a pain laced smile.

"Not really." Johnny scoffed.

"Shut up. What happened, Anthony?" Jason asked once more.

"The girl was a casualty of the business." Anthony lost his smile when he spoke up next. "I think we all know about those," he made the comment pointedly to Sonny, but Sonny didn't take the bait.

"How'd it happen?" Jason growled out.

"She didn't get found in time." Anthony choked on the words as Jason pressed in harder against his throat.

"What do you mean she didn't get found in time?" Sonny asked worry dotting his brow as he tried to decipher what it was Anthony was beating around the bush about.

"I think it's imperative that we refocus our attention momentarily!" Spinelli called trying to get everyone attention back to who everyone but Jason believed to be Alicia.

On the screen Sam was standing next to a large air vent striping out of her over shirt, leaving her dressed in a camisole and jeans as she felt along the vent worriedly. Spinelli frowned as she then kicked it in frustration realizing something that they were all just now catching onto. As if on cue words tittered across the screen at the bottom so as not to disturb the picture above. They read :

**Air remaining : 24:00:00 **

Immediately the clock started counting down in increments of seconds and minutes indicating that they now had just shy of 24 hours to find her as Anthony gave another clue as to what he was talking about. "She wasn't found before she suffocated." He whispered out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_Thanks for reading and reviewing :)Hope everyone enjoys the update :) Feedback is much appreciated. :)_

Jason pushed himself off of Anthony and made a bee line for Spinelli not even trying to hide how upset he was. "24 hours...we're not even close yet. Spinelli can't even find a paper trail on Alarico that's current." He breathed out in frustration getting it all out as he wiped a palm over his mouth in horror, watching Sam as she took out her own frustration all alone in the dark.

"I'm pretty sure that's the point." Sonny said in wide eyed disgust as he watched Sam as well. "He wants us to feel helpless, like he did."

Jason turned back to Anthony expectantly. "I want real answers, now." He advanced on him, ready to get physical again if he had to, Johnny and Sonny advancing with him to pull him off Anthony before he killed him if need be. "How did she suffocate?"

"I would imagine it was the lack of air." Anthony replied evenly with a waggled of his eyebrows. Jason lunged pinning him to the wall once more.

"You may not give a rats ass about your daughters, God knows you didn't give a shit about Claudia, but I will end you here and now if you do not tell me what the hell you did to Felicia Espinoza." Jason promised Anthony as he returned his fore arm to his throat as proof that he meant what he was saying.

"You're very convincing." Anthony choked out. Jason gave a growl and choked off any chance that Anthony had to answer let alone breath. Johnny and Sonny suddenly scrambled to pull Jason off Anthony realizing that if Anthony was dead there was little he could tell them.

"What happened to Felicia!" Jason screamed at him as he fought Sonny and Johnny to get back to him.

"I ransomed her!" Anthony screamed back finally, anger sparked behind his eyes as he met Jason's while rubbing at his throat with a grimace. "Alarico was trying to blackmail me into protecting him so I kidnapped his daughter to turn the tables. It was a logical move." Anthony belted out in disdain that Jason was pushing so hard. "He thought I was bluffing. I told him I would release her if he turned himself over to me. And I would have, but he didn't."

Jason calmed marginally but Johnny and Sonny both kept their hold on him expectantly. The whole room tuned into Anthony save Spinelli who was watching Sam on the computer screen. Even Alicia had turned around on the couch and was peering over the back of it.

"He found out where she was too late." Anthony licked at his lips nervously. "I'd already moved on from the area, left her for dead. I'd sealed her into a bomb shelter on the cabin land at Lookout point. He didn't make it in time."

Everyone looked at him with growing disgust and Anthony took on a more defensive posture. " He had a choice." He retaliated coldly. "It's his own guilt that's eating him now. Causing him to seek out some sort of remedial justice."

"You son of a bitch!" Jason lunged again and Johnny and Sonny let him go, looking at Anthony in horror. They waited for the ensuing beating to reach a critical point, giving Jason some measure of satisfaction, before they stepped in once more and pulled him off Anthony, now laying on his back on the floor looking up at everyone. "You killed his daughter!"

"He killed his daughter!" Anthony screamed back. Jason broke away from Sonny and Johnny and clocked Anthony again laying him out cold before they were able to get a hold on him again.

"Jason! We need him alive!" Sonny got out in a frantic whisper as he fought to hold his friend in check. "You, need him alive. Sam, needs him alive." He told him fervently, desperately trying to get him to see reason. "If we're ever going to catch this guy, we need Anthony." It was easily discernible that Sonny hated to admit that.

"I am uncertain as to whether Alicia's only concern is the air remaining inside her prison!" Spinelli interjected into the group as he turned everyone's attention back to the screen.

Jason snapped back from rage in a heartbeat and looked to the computer breaking out of Sonny and Johnny's hold leaving the both of the winded and looking over the back of the couch to see what was going on on screen.

Sam was backing away from a doorway that had sharp edges poking from the door frame holding her right arm protectively, still in the pitch black, the night vision of the camera the only reason they could see it. "Did she get cut?" Jason asked worriedly.

"It looked like it." Spinelli nodded. Jason knocked a vase off the table behind the couch, flinging it against the far wall near the fire place.

"Jason," Alicia started, but Jason cut her off no longer able to keep up with the charade.

"Don't even try it." Jason admonished her. "I know you're not Sam. I thought I could fake pretending, trap you somehow, but I'm not going to." Jason met her eyes, seeing fear reigning as he took a step in her direction. "If you're working for Alarico, you need to talk, now." He assured her. "I'm not going to play any sick game to try and figure out whose doing what. Tell me what you know." He demanded of her.

Alicia looked bewildered a moment as did everyone else in the room as they all looked to her in wonder. Finally, she seemed to resign herself to the idea that she had been found out and she squared her shoulders before she met his hardened eyes with her own cold brown orbs. "I didn't want to go back to prison. I was never working for this guy you keep mentioning. I just didn't see the point of letting everyone suffer when I could ease their minds."

"By pretending to be Sam?" Jason asked in disbelief.

"It was mutually beneficial." She replied evenly.

"Wow," It was Johnny that answered. "I see the family resemblance now." He scoffed.

"Playing games is what started this whole thing." Jason replied without remorse as he met Sonny's eyes. "I'm not about to keep it going." Jason explained to the room. "If this asshole it trying to be authentic then we need to be looking for bomb shelters." Jason looked back to Sonny. "Did your contact come up with land that the foundation might have purchased?"

"I'll call him back." Sonny nodded already grabbing his phone from his pocket.

"We should go back and look into the bomb shelter on your families land." Jason gave a nod to Johnny. "Do you know where it is?"

Johnny was already shaking his head. "I'll make some calls and find out," he promised him.

"Jason, look I really didn't...I mean I'm not..." Alicia started. "I didn't want Sam to die..." She said as if it was going to make some dent in his armor. Jason whirled on her.

"You didn't give a shit about her as long as you made it out ahead." Jason replied believing that she wasn't in it was Alarico. "Don't talk to me unless it's to add something important to the investigation." he warned her.

"It appears that the Blackhearted One is leading Sam in a specific direction." Spinelli explained as he was continuing to watch despite all the changing atmosphere about him. Jason looked to the screen to see that Sam was headed through another door, devoid of fragments that could cause her harm.

"He's herding her...why?" Jason asked worriedly.

"Because he can't have her live through this..." It was Johnny who caught on first. "He has to ensure that she dies or none of this makes up for the loss of his daughter."

"That's not going to happen." Jason promised Johnny, hell h was promising it to everyone who had a second to listen. Sam wasn't going to die for her father's past mistakes. Not if he could help it. "Spinelli I need to know where she is!"

"I...I know!" Spinelli retorted as his typing got more frantic. "I still can't pin down where he's coming from. The origination point is shrouded through various relay points. It could take days to peel back the layers of security."

"We don't have days." Jason breathed with a deepening frown.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Sam cursed under her breath as she tucked her arm against her chest, back tracking to where soft mechanical light filtered into the hallway marginally from the room she'd woken in. She flinched in the sudden onslaught having gotten used to the pitch black. Sam blinked rapidly as she looked down her forearm where a jagged piece of glass was now poking out of the skin. "So that's how we're going to play it?" She whispered needing to hear anything but the echo of silence that had embraced her entirely too long.

Sam leaned back against the wall across from the dimly lit mannequin parts room and set the leg she was using as a weapon down so that she could get the over shirt she'd tied around her waist when she realized that there was no air being pumped in through the ventilation shafts. She'd tried to get the cover off, but it was screwed in with more than a dozen screws and well she was fresh out of screw drivers.

Sam closed her eyes, letting out a breath as she took a moment to picture Jason. _'I know you haven't given up.'_ she thought to herself. And she wasn't about to. The more that happened, the more this guy threw at her, the more determined she was to make it out of this in one piece._ 'We'll be together soon.' _It was what kept her going, gave her the strength to fight.

Sam swallowed tightly and looked down at the glass protruding from her arm once more. She grit her teeth and pulled it out letting out a muffled cry. She caught her breath and tied the over shirt around it with some tricky moves. She then peered straight ahead into the freaky pile of fake bodies trying to come up with her next move.

She wasn't going to wander around down here, steering clear of obstacles and searching for a way out as it was now clear that he'd set some traps. Sicko. Sam narrowed her eyes as she caught a glimpse of a long thin screw sticking up from the torso of one of the mannequins. She pushed off the wall and waded back into the room and heaved the torso into her arms fighting the pain that racked her arm as she made it back into the hallway with her new prize. The screw was made into the middle of the torso protruding from the top just enough to attach a head to it.

Sam used every ounce of strength that she possessed to slam the mannequin middle into the wall repeatedly until she busted it to pieces. She then knelt down and combed through the remained until she wrapped her palm around the screw. Sam then moved into the edge of the light so that she could see what she was doing and angled the smooth rounded edge of the screw against the coarse grated metal beneath her feet. She began to rub the edge of the screw at a quick pace trying to file it into something she could use as a screw driver so that she could get the vent cover off.

The air intake had to lead to the surface. If the shaft wasn't too narrow, if it wasn't too vertical, she might be able to climb out of this hell hole that way. First she had to get the damn cover off.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

"What is she doing?" Alicia asked as she leaned in closer to Spinelli, the both of them watching Sam on the screen. Alicia had shucked any lingering pretense that she was Sam and was returning to her superior self with flying colors. She caught a glare from Jason and fell silent.

"Fair Samantha is utilizing her ingenuity to orchestrate an escape." Spinelli spoke up in Sam's defense as he scooted away from Alicia obviously reeling from the realization that she wasn't indeed Sam and the fact that he hadn't realized it until Jason had to point it out to him. "I think."

"Keep an eye on her and let me know what she is doing when you figure it out." Jason told Spinelli as he looked to Sonny just now finishing his conversation with his contact about the Felicia Foundation.

"I've got the address, it's an orphanage still under construction." Sonny headed to the desk and wrote it out for Jason handing him the folded slip of paper. "They didn't know about any underground constructs on the premises."

"It might not be on any of the records of the grounds. Some times they don't require the same permits to put a bomb shelter in because it doesn't tie into any utilities." Anthony spoke up as he rose from the floor, finally rousing. He wiped at the blood streaming from his nose with a grimace. "Helps to keep the structure safe and secure, unknown to any outsiders."

"Spinelli, look into bomb shelter manufacturers and see if any made any deliveries to the Felicia Foundation recently." Jason was grabbing his keys already heading for the door with Sonny's slip of paper in hand. "Once you know which it is..." Spinelli cut him off.

"The Jackal knows what to do." Spinelli sprang into action setting Sam's laptop up as the one on which they could keep tabs on Sam while he got back to work on his own.

"Sonny," Jason started as he saw that Sonny was readying to head out with him. "I need you stay here and keep an eye on Sam." He motioned to the computer worriedly. He didn't trust Anthony or Alicia or Johnny to do it for him and Spinelli had other things to do. "Johnny can head out with me."

"I'm going too." Anthony piped in and Jason and Johnny turned to look at him in disbelief.

"I don't think so." Jason replied evenly trying to hold his temper in check.

"What, you don't trust me?" Anthony scoffed. "That's my daughter out there."

"That's your daughter in here." Sonny spoke up trying to contain the situation before Anthony ended up on the floor again. "She's already been through hell and needs someone." Sonny focused Anthony on Alicia and prayed that he took the bait. "If you really feel like playing the role of the doting father, start there."

Alicia looked back at them narrowing her eyes. "I'm sure I'll manage without the coddling." She spoke up in disdain at the idea that she needed anyone help. That seemed to spark Anthony's attention and he looked to Sonny with a nod.

"You make a valid point." Anthony looked to Johnny. "Make sure you bring your other sister home in one piece." He then headed in Alicia's direction. "Darling, it's alright. Daddy's here." Alicia widened her eyes in disgust as he came to envelope her in a hug, sinking to her side on the couch.

Johnny arched an eyebrow at the sight not sure that Anthony's round with Jason hadn't wrestled a few more screws loose. Jason and Johnny headed out the door into the morning sunlit bustle of day headed across town to the new orphanage being erected in Felicia's name.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

"_All these broken pieces left unglued... should never find their way into the hands of someone like you..." _

The music echoed in waves around the lofty hall of the four story monstrosity soon to serve the Northeast as a privately funded home to those without families of their own. Alarico looked down from his top floor apartment into the throngs of workers bustling about as they worked to complete the charitable little piece of human generosity. He smiled wickedly that none of them knew that his revenge was being carried out mere feet below them.

"_I'm in the dark...I'm alone around you...I've never been here before...nobody here to get me __through...I'm in the dark..."_

Sam felt she'd been working for hours, no real indication of how long time was passing available to her. She checked the end of the screw once more and felt scattered relief shimmy through her as she thought it might just work now. Sam got to her feet trying to retrace her steps back to the vent by memory. It was a strange thing being blind, the whole idea of feeling her way instead of seeing it. Sam made it to the vent and quickly got the screw driver in place praying that she'd filed it enough.

She felt the flattened end sink into the first screw head and let out a cry in surprise and cheer. God she might get home sooner then she thought...

"_Every minute shared is never mine...frozen in this fog and hiding every second in time...I'm in the dark..I'm alone around you...I've never been here before...nobody here to get me through..."_

Sonny picked up the phone and dialed Jason as he realized what Sam was doing. Spinelli was still trying to get the right schematics to the bomb shelter that was on site at the Felicia foundation nearby while Alicia and Anthony were having what might pass as a forced family bonding session.

Jason pulled into the outskirts of the construction site and parked. They were going to sneak in, which shouldn't be too difficult as they could both pass for construction workers. Jason paused his hand on the door handle when he realized that Sonny was trying to get through to him. "Yeah."

"I think I know what Sam's up to." Sonny replied immediately. "She's trying to get the vent cover off, probably thinks she can get out that way."

"Sounds good, there has to be some sort of vent on the surface, maybe we can find it. We're at the site now. I'll check back with you later, we need to blend in first." Jason explained before ending the call. He and Johnny exchanged a glance and nod before they exited the vehicle, moving into the site, grabbing hats, vests, and gloves on their way in.

"_I'm in the dark..."_

**- Song - "In the dark" by The Birthday Massacre.**


	7. Chapter 7 pt 1

**Chapter Seven Pt 1**

_Lol I will meet the deadline :P Thanks for the reviews so far – love them. Hope everyone enjoys this teeny tiny update._

Sonny was on his feet watching the video feed now a moot point as Sam had climbed into the air vent and was now out of his view. He had been working his sources like a mad man trying to find out something to give Spinelli so that he could find what he needed on Alarico.

He'd finally hit pay dirt.

Sonny wasn't exactly smiling but he did have more to go on. "Alarico's been going by an alias for all these years." He explained to the room. Anthony perked up, Alicia's shunning obviously putting him off. Sonny met Anthony's eyes having a feeling he would understand what he was about to say more than anyone else in the room. "He became his father's enforcer and took on the name Dimas..."

"Diablo Dimas?" Anthony asked in horror.

"The same." Sonny nodded, the both of them looking grim.

"I would like a further explanation." Alicia spoke up pointedly a huff to her voice.

"He's a pretty ferocious enforcer who's made his point with extensive torture and beastly acts of carnage." Anthony was looking a little paler as if he may have finally met his match, a shock to be sure.

"He's single - handedly put the Espinoza's at the top of their empire by embracing a rule via fear for the last decade." Sonny piped in.

"And he's got Sam?" Alicia asked as it sank in that he'd had her in his clutches as well.

They all shared glances at that but no one said a word.

"Spinelli, have you got the blue prints yet?" Sonny changed the subject, needing the computer guru at work on this new information and praying that he'd figured out where Sam was buried.

"I've ascertained the make and model of the customized bomb refuge but there are no plans detailing where on the site it's actually buried." Spinelli got out in frustration. "It's a simple dilemma of logistics. There are only a few locations suited for such a shelter and they can only be located here, here, here, or here." Spinelli explained as he pulled up the satellite imagery from the site and pointed out the possibilities.

"Alright. I'll get that to Jason. I need you to find everything that you can on Diablo Dimas in connection with the Espinozas and the Felicia foundation." Sonny pointed him in the right direction...

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Sam lay on her back peering up at the vertical shaft that stretched heavenward for at least fourteen feet. She'd crawled for what seemed like miles as she wound through the ventilation system only to finally find the shaft that was to lead her to freedom. She'd been crawling blindly fighting the worst tendency towards claustrophobia that she'd ever battled when sunlight finally filtered in through the vent system showing her the way out.

Now she just had to climb 14 feet straight up if she wanted to live.

Piece of cake...

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Alarico walked out of his apartment and crossed the distance to his offices across the hallway, throwing the door open to reveal a room filled with two long conference tables full of hard working henchmen, helping him run the current operation.

"They're here." Was all he offered them before he turned and walked out the door, heading for the elevator.

The sound of chairs scraping the floor sounded just before the bustle of movement that harkened his security force following him. Edwardo, his son, held the point position as the whole of the seven person crowd joined Alarico as his entourage in the elevator, before he set them on their way to the ground floor.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Jason and Johnny made their way through the crowd of workers, blending in with a combination of simple attire and swiped gear. They were both sporting hard hats and orange vests as well as work men's gloves. So far the scouring of the grounds for ventilation shafts had turned up little to nothing, but they still needed to get into the courtyard. Easy going as their was a lot of gardening going on in there. Jason picked up a bag of potting soil to occupy both shoulders as the men before him had done and headed in that direction.

Johnny managed to do the same, the both of them heading in the front door of the unfinished orphanage en route to the courtyard. Jason was praying that they spotted some unaccounted for vent in the ground.

They passed a set of decorative double doors into a paradise in the making. A small shallow pond was the centerpiece, surrounded by... Jason hitched in a breath at the large pink blossoms in the circle of Japanese magnolias. It was like a secret homage to where his daughter had died. Jason tossed his sacks of potting soil on the ground and looked up into the tree branches, the significance playing havoc on him. He didn't even know how old Felicia had been when she'd died all alone in that dark bomb shelter.

He had to shake himself to go on, to look for what could possibly serve as a ventilation cover in this area. They would want it to blend in...

Jason narrowed his eyes when he noticed a rock situated about where there had been one in the field of Magnolia's at Anthony and Johnny's place. Johnny had explained what he'd found about the place on the ride over. The actual bomb shelter was flooded with ground water and the rock in the field covered the entrance. Maybe in this instance the rock covered the vent shaft.

Jason imagined that Alarico would have kept the actual entrance accessible from somewhere inside the basement of the orphanage. Which was the next stop if they couldn't find the vent shaft that Sam was already inside of. He'd been keeping up via text message with Sonny.

A horn suddenly blasted signifying the lunch break for the work crew and Jason and Johnny lingered behind glad for the solitude with which to work. They waited for the crew to clear out before they spoke. "I think the shaft might be under that rock." Jason nodded toward it as he moved in that direction, Johnny quick on his heels. It stood to reason that Alarico would have closed off the shaft to prevent discovery and air getting in, considering what he wanted out of all of this.

Jason looked over the top of the rock to Johnny as they both situated themselves on either side of it to heave it from it's current location. Jason felt a sense of satisfaction and relief shoot through him when he saw the grate beneath the rock. They threw it over a few feet and Jason was just about to see about getting the grate off when he heard the sudden sound of a gun cocking at his back.

Jason looked to Johnny accusingly but saw that he was just as taken off guard as they both raised their arms to keep from getting shot before they could pull this whole rescue off.


	8. Chapter 7 pt 2

**Chapter Seven Pt 2**

"It's going straight to voice mail." Sonny and Anthony exited the elevator joined by their own personal entourages of guards as they made their way to the waiting car pulling up front.

"So's Johnny's." Anthony blinked against the pain swelling in shades of crimson and violet. Just moments ago Damien Spinelli had finally managed to get into into Alarico's files via information he was able to gleam from tracking him via his brutal killer side Dimas. Sonny and Anthony left Alicia with a hand full of guards and in the care of the computer nerd to provide back up.

Apparently Sam and Alicia weren't the only targets and the bomb shelter/ torture chamber was set to be the burial chamber for them all. Sonny wasn't sure Sam even realized that if she had played into Alarico's sick game she would have stumbled onto the remains of the guards that had been killed during her captivity and probably met her own maker in one of a half dozen ways. Hell deciding to try the air vent probably saved her life.

"Let's hope we're not too late." The plan was anything but simple.

Alarico had designed the bomb shelter with a blast door locked with a state of the art system that put professionals at a loss. Sonny'd even sent the schematics to Luke to see if there was any way to get the damn thing open. Why? Sam was almost out the shaft, right? Wrong...It looked like they weren't the only ones watching her and Alarico was never going to let that happen. He even had it written out in a file on his hard drive the contingency plan was to fill the air vent with concrete if it posed any sort of problem. Couple that with the fact that Luke took one look at the locking mechanism and said it was possible but not in the time frame and they were guessing that Alarico was about to ask the same of Anthony that Anthony had asked of him all those years ago when his daughter was killed.

"He wants to bargain." Anthony glared at Sonny at that.

"He doesn't want to bargain. He wants to kill me and everyone he thinks I've ever cared about." Anthony scoffed.

"He's still got the upper hand." Sonny retorted matching his anger word for word. "And we're going to have to at least let him think he's getting what he wants. So if we have to make it look like you're dead to make that happen then so be it."

"I'm a lot of things, but you must really think I'm batshit if you think I trust you to help me fake my death in front of that looney. You want me dead as much as he does, so does Jason."

"You don't think that Jason might share a different opinion on the matter considering that you're Sam's father?"

"I think accidents can happen in a lot of different ways." Anthony arched an eyebrow at Sonny and winced at the pain that radiated through his face. "Doesn't matter. I Had a feeling it might come to this. I'm pretty sure you'll play on the level." Anthony tossed Sonny his phone. There on the front saved as his wallpaper was a picture of Kristina being held at gunpoint by what was presumed to be one of Anthony's men. "I took the liberty of securing leverage before coming over."

"There's no way that's real. Kristina isn't in Port Charles..." Sonny started but Anthony cut him off.

"She's away on a senior trip with four of her girlfriends in Panama City." Anthony let him know that he knew exactly where she was and that this was indeed real. "The minute this is all over she goes back to having a blast with her friends."

"You son of a..." Sonny growled out ready to kill Anthony himself.

"Hey, hey, watch the merchandise. You'll get your chance." Anthony smirked wickedly. " Just make sure to play your part and everything will go just fine."

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Spinelli blinked at the screen as he hurried through file after file, his new found access to Alarico's files giving him a plethora of useful information. Most of which Sonny and Jason could later use against the monster if they happen to not kill him soon. He had everything he needed, patterns of behavior woven through his and his son's electronic signatures, recent purchases, locations. His son's undoing was thinking that he was too good to keep everyone out their system. Otherwise they might have kept the files out of reach, not even connected to the world wide networks.

Spinelli narrowed his eyes as his gaze fell on a folder labeled Felicia. The first few documents were articles about her disappearance but there was a nested folder that caught his attention. Spinelli clicked to open it and looked over a host of small files labeled with dates that predated May of 2001. The last was dated a day before Felicia had been killed.

Spinelli was just about to open it when he realized how creepily quiet it had gotten. He looked to the now vacant couch beside him and the computer that was still showing a blank hallway from where Sam had climbed into the ventilation shaft and slowly got to his feet. "Doppelganger?" Spinelli knew that Jason didn't want him to call her that, but it was far better then some of the other things that he had roaming around in his head to call her.

He rushed through the apartment as panic set in. He had only a handful of jobs currently and one of them was looking after the Goddess's sister. Oh God. Spinelli suddenly froze in Stonecold's bedroom door. "Oh, no no no..."

The room wasn't completely ransacked but most of Sam's drawers had been gone through and he had a pretty good idea what she was after. Spinelli licked at his lips in horror. Jason was going to kill him or maybe Sonny. Could be Anthony would do it. On the mirror written in Sam's lipstick was:

"_I'm sure we'll meet again. Thank you for the chance to start over." _

Spinelli sank onto the bed seeing that Alicia had taken her fair share of clothes, packed a bag, gotten into the emergency funds stash, and taken some of Sam's fake ID's. '_The guards!'_ Spinelli's hope was renewed when he remembered that Mr. Sir had left a good deal of guards behind to make sure that Alarico didn't try anything while they were gone. Spinelli raced down the stairs and threw open the front door to find two unconscious men in the floor.

His face fell in horror. He hurried out in the hall to check and make sure that they were alright as he silently prayed that Alicia was alright where ever she was out there. He might not have liked her much, but she was Sam's sister...

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Sam had been getting by with a thin aura of sunlight filtering around something that she had assumed was a vent cover at the top of the shaft. She was nearly seven feet up when the object was removed and she was momentarily blinded by the sudden onslaught of light. Dammit. Did they know? How? How could they?

She froze in place for now. It had taken her two forevers to brave what served as finger and toe holes, pitted metal that had luckily come from a contractor that didn't care much about making sure a structure was in it for the long haul, and make it to her current location. She wasn't about to lose ground if she didn't have to. Maybe it wasn't Alarico. Maybe it was Jason. Sam looked up, blinking against the assault of light as the tried to see past the sun and outline of the grate still in place over the top. She didn't have much luck...

Sam dug her feet in and pressed her back against the back of the shaft, trying to wedge herself in so she didn't lose any ground before she found out what was going on.

Above her on ground level...

"Relieve Mr. Morgan and Zacchara of their weapons, Matthew..." Alarico Espinoza made his way to position himself so that both Johnny and Jason could get a good view of him as his men held them both at gunpoint from behind. "I'm so glad that you decided to join us. I'm sure that Samantha was getting lonely down there."

Jason and Johnny kept quiet for now, waiting for the punch line.

"This wasn't exactly how I planned this, but it'll do." Alarico motioned another of his men towards the grate and the man quickly began to remove it one screw at a time. Jason was just close enough when the grate was removed to catch a glimpse of Sam wedged into the shaft seven feet from the ground. Their eyes met for a brief moment and a sad smile tugged at her lips. She was so close.

"Johnny this is where we bid each other farewell." Alarico motioned to the hole. "Jump in. I'm sure you're sister will welcome you with open arms."

"Wait, what?" Johnny looked back at him in shock.

"Jump. Into. The. Hole." Alarico commanded pronouncing each word slowly as if he assumed that Johnny was thick.

Jason met Sam's eyes once more his lit with fear as she heard the conversation above. He hitched in a breath when she reluctantly blew him a kiss and then pulled her feet away from the wall to let herself fall the rest of the way into the shaft to make room for Johnny so that he didn't hit her on his way down.

"Look, we can..." Johnny started trying to buy time but Alarico shut him down in a heart beat.

"You can either jump now or I'll shoot you and throw your corpse down it." He promised him.

Johnny looked to Jason a moment and then swallowed tightly before he looked down into the shaft and the darkness below. He looked back up meeting Alarico's gaze and then stepped off the ground into the shaft wordlessly, trying to show no fear.

Sam dashed out of the way she heard Johnny slam into the side of the shaft on his way down. She was on her hands and knees waiting when he suddenly hit the bottom of the shaft that opened into the access shaft and his ankles buckled from the force of the impact. He slid feet first towards her and she had to back up further as his cry from the pained impact echoed through the tunnels.

"Are you alright?" Sam asked worriedly as she headed back in his direction.

"I'm fine, you?" Johnny asked breathlessly, fighting the pain that was rippling through his ankles and legs.

"Good." She nodded. "Can you crawl?"

"Yeah." Johnny nodded as he looked up all of a sudden when a shadow fell over him. Sam watched a splash of gray spatter against his shoulder and narrowed her eyes quizzically as his eyes suddenly widened and he sprang into action. "Move! Now." Johnny scrambled into the shaft after Sam who did as he told her to just as wet concrete began to flow into the shaft.

On the surface Jason had lunged in Alarico's direction as soon as he saw the concrete truck being backed into the courtyard through the back gate. His men caught him before he could reach his target but it took three of Alarico's men to hold him back as the demented killer tried to shout some reason to him. "They've got plenty of time to make it into the main body of the bomb shelter. And if you want to help them make it out of this alive in the next five hours then you'll calm down and walk with me."

Alarico watched as Jason finally stopped fighting, glaring back at him in rage as concrete began to flow into the ventilation shaft. "There's now only one entrance and exit to the shelter. I want you to get Anthony on the phone and let him know that if Samantha isn't enough leverage I also have his son. He needs to come here and turn himself over to me if he wants to see either of them again...and I believe that he only has..." Alarico looked to his watch to calculate before he looked up to meet Jason's eyes. "Five hours, now that there are two of them down there."

"What if he refuses." Jason worried out loud, knowing that Anthony's desire for self preservation far outweighed any loyalty he might have felt for his children.

"They die." Alarico shrugged as if it was no big deal and Jason had to fight going after him again. Alarico looked back at Jason with a psychotic smile growing across his face. "But lets think happy thoughts."

"You know I'm going to kill you when this is all over, right?" Jason asked as they made their way into the orphanage moving towards the basement and presumably the entrance to the bomb shelter.

Alarico was smiling unflinchingly when he looked back at Jason. "I'm sure you'll try. Make your call before your girlfriend expires."

**ZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Sam and Johnny tumbled into the pitch black corridor, both scrambling to get to their feet as the concrete began to flow out behind them. "We need to move towards the entrance, that stuff is going to fill this whole area." Johnny reasoned out winded as he felt for Sam in the dark.

"I'm game if you know which direction it's in." Sam got out as she tried to catch her breath as well also reaching for him. It was strange to even think of Johnny as her brother and so not the right time to bring it up considering what they were facing. Plus there was much more weighing on at the moment. "Is Jason alright?"

"He was when I jumped...I'd say the direction of the door frame that was set to slice and dice would be the best bet for the entrance." Johnny figured that he didn't want her headed in the right direction and getting cut to ribbons served as a great deterrent. "You were on candid camera." He explained. "How's your arm?"

"That explains a lot. It's been better." Sam cringed at the thought of blindly trying to navigate through the hatch system especially knowing that there could be worse then a door frame made out of glass shards to get through before they got anywhere near the entrance. Sam fumbling found Johnny's arm and motioned it in the direction she remembered the sadistic door being. "It's this way...we just need to be really careful."

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Sonny picked up the phone the moment he saw that it was Jason calling. "What's going on there?"

"I need you to bring Anthony to the building site." Jason told him quickly. "Espinoza wants to make a trade for Sam and Johnny. He wants Anthony." Jason explained to him.

"We thought it might be something like that. We're already headed in your direction, Jason. How's Sam and Johnny?"

"They're alive, but they've only got five hours of air left." Jason seethed the words out as he glared at Alarico. This was all wrong, but dammit if he had to make the call as to whether Sam or Anthony lived he knew he could make it with unflinching resolve. He wasn't really sure how Sam would feel about it, but he knew she wasn't willing to sacrifice herself for the man.

"We've got a plan and we'll be there in twenty minutes. You guys hold on." Sonny told him as they sped towards the site.

Jason ended the call and looked to Alarico as they made it down the stairs into the basement and a couple of his men headed over to an open outer door that revealed the heavy blast door beyond an inset control pannel set into the metallic structure clearly visible near the handle. "Before you get any ideas. I'm the only one who knows the code..." Alarico explained to Jason.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

_So this is last chapter. Hope everyone has enjoyed and it's not the chipper note that I usually leave things on, but I still hope you guys like it. Thanks for the reviews and you guys all rock :)_

Sam held the mannequin leg that she'd previously placed outside the vent shaft for safe keeping, now reclaimed as she and Johnny moved in the darkness, the lack of light posing as many problems as the traps that Alarico had set. "It looks like he made this place up like a fun house from hell. Jason thought he was trying to herd you towards the worse danger."

"Well let's hope we're going the right way then." Sam swallowed tightly using the leg to sweep in front of her. She was out of breath and knew that she shouldn't be struggling so much. They weren't exerting themselves that much. Johnny kept accidentally bumping into her from behind and she could hear that his feet were falling awkwardly as he moved. "How bad's the ankle?"

"I can walk." Johnny voice was heavy as well, drawing in breath deeply as though he was having as much trouble as she was. "It's really not that bad, a sprain."

"How did you get involved in all of this?"Sam felt the leg end hit the door frame beyond and quickly set about clearing away any glass from the frame with the leg. She was so winded afterward that she leaned forward, propping herself up on her knees to catch her breath. She had a feeling she knew, even though she was the most far behind of everyone involved in this.

"Sonny called me. Alarico Espinoza, the guy that was holding you and Alicia had Jason and our Father playing a game concerning the two of you as a way to get back at Anthony. Why he had Jason playing – I don't know, but Sonny thought I could help with Anthony."

Sam didn't know where to start as she carefully stepped through the doorway and used the leg like a walking stick against the floor. "So this sicko has Alicia too? I haven't seen her." Sam spoke up worriedly. It was a strange confliction of emotions that racked her over her sudden new family, especially with as much bad blood as there was between her and most of them, Johnny not withstanding.

"He let her go." Johnny explained. "Before he almost drowned you. She'd alright, back at the penthouse with Spinelli."

"I'm glad she's okay. Was it part of the game?" Sam asked in confusion wondering why he'd let her go.

"Yeah."

"Well why is Jason playing if he wants to get back at Anthony?" Sam felt something slick in the floor and fought to stay on her feet. "Careful there's something slick in the floor."

"I don't know why Jason's playing, maybe he's just winding him up for something." Johnny reasoned as he followed her lead and tried to keep his feet under him, slipping several times before he was able to steady himself. He didn't even want to know what they were walking in. "I'm a little concerned it might be to kill my - our father. He killed Espinoza's daughter trying to get him to turn himself over to him so he could off him ten years ago."

"Oh that's perfect." Sam felt sick at her stomach and it wasn't just from the thought that her father could be such a heartless man. There was a smell and they were already breathing heavily, she couldn't block it out. "Do you..." Sam broke off in mid gag.

"I smell it. J – just keep moving..." Johnny wanted out of here, now. He recognized the scent though he'd never smelled it quite like this. It was blood and decay. Probably from whatever kills Alarico had made just for the sheer fun of it, the sick bastard. Johnny stopped all at once when he heard Sam hit the floor, dry heaving. He cursed under his breath.

Johnny hadn't been sure how he'd felt when Sonny first told him about Sam and he didn't even know Alicia then. So far he wasn't sure he and Alicia would get along all that well, but he already had quite a bit of respect for Sam and he couldn't say that he wasn't already feeling protective of her, that he really did care about her and that was before he knew she was his sister.

Johnny quickly dropped beside her, feeling to get his arm wrapped around her before he pulled the both of them to their feet and kept his arm securely around her as he helped her to the next doorway, praying that there wasn't some trap there as well. Thank God there wasn't. Apparently one glass filled doorway and mystery room just ripe to make near anyone sick was enough of a torture for the next doorway was clear. Johnny pulled the both of them through it and they sank against the floor grate on the other side of the hatch, both fighting to catch their breath.

"Thanks." Sam gasped out looking to where Johnny sat elbow to elbow with her.

"No prob, Sis." Johnny chuckled between breaths.

"I wasn't sure we were going to get into that..." Sam smiled slightly.

"We don't have to, but I know I'm not opposed to being a brother. I kinda already know how it works." Johnny smirked.

"Yeah I think I know how the sister thing works too." Sam leaned her head back against the wall wearily. They grew silent as both of them fought to get their breathing even, several minutes passing before that occurred on any level and then they were still half fighting. "We're running out of air."

"Yeah I caught that. Maybe it was a miscalculation..."

"Maybe, How close you think we are to the entrance?" Sam slid her hand down his arm knowing that they weren't going anywhere. It was hard enough sitting in the black, knowing that you were dying and being alone. She slid her hand into his and felt him wrap his tighter around hers in comfort.

"Let's hope close enough."

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

"The Jackal has traced the the source to a nearby apartment complex not two blocks from the foundations location." Spinelli looked past the open doorway to where Sonny's men were relieving those that Alicia had knocked out.

Sonny had asked Spinelli to get Max and Milo to Alarico's son. They were banking on the man being nearby to help coordinate with the programming needed to get the elaborate games set up, but Sonny didn't believe that Alarico would risk having his son at his side and it turned out that Sonny was right.

It was the backup plan.

"I'm sending the exact coordinates to your phone." Spinelli explained as he sank back to his computer and did as he said. So far there was no word on Alicia but she wasn't exactly a priority with everything else that was going on. Milo got the coordinates and ended the call with a 'Thank you,' and a promise to call back if they needed any more help finding Alarico's son.

That gave Spinelli more time to get into the files that he had been trying to look through when he'd realized that Alicia was gone. Spinelli gave a cursory glance to the second laptop still streaming live feed of Sam and now Johnny with the night vision camera's and he frowned seeing that they were sitting on the floor, huddled together.

That couldn't be good, especially judging by the difficulty breathing that they were having. The air must be getting heavy by now. He'd already warned Sonny when they'd calculated how much air was left that 5 hours didn't mean that they would be conscious much longer.

Spinelli watched his friend worriedly praying that this was all resolved soon.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

"Max and Milo have the location of Edward, Alarico's son," Sonny explained as he and Anthony walked through the construction site just the two of them. "If we have to we'll use him as leverage to get the others back. I'm really hoping that it doesn't come to that. Unlike you and Alarico, I really have a problem with using other people's children as bargaining chips. Unfortunately, I think this might be our only way of getting Sam and Johnny back." Sonny admitted.

"We've all got something to lose here." Anthony nodded. "Just keep that in mind." Anthony felt the patch from a blood packet thick and sticky against his chest as he moved, pulling and tugging at stray hairs here and there.

He wasn't entirely sure about any of this.

On the off chance that Alarico actually bought that he'd been killed he would probably at least check for a pulse before he gave up whatever it was they needed to know to get Sam and Johnny out. Anthony had a feeling that it was going to come down to Max and Milo bringing Edward in if they were truly going to get anywhere.

Then when everyone was out there was probably going to be one hell of a gun battle because no one wanted any one from the other party to walk out of that basement. Anthony supposed it would simply come down to the last ones standing in the end.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Jason leaned against a wall just to the right of the large blast door that served as Sam and Johnny's prison bars dividing his attention on memorizing the lay out of the basement and rationalizing exit strategies in case of several different scenarios. He also studied the seven men serving Alarico as guards. They seemed capable enough, most probably had the same level of experience as Sonny's guards.

Alarico, though, even if he hadn't gotten the download that Spinelli had sent to his phone just moments before they had been discovered by Alarico and his men detailing just how sadistic this asshole was he, he could see that he was everything he'd built himself up to be.

"So this is all about revenge?" Jason asked as they waited for Sonny and Anthony to arrive. He wanted this over with now, wanted Sam out and safe, no matter what he had to do to make that happen. This wait was killing him.

"You could say that." Alarico seemed to stay on his toes though he had relaxed marginally since they'd settled into the basement. "You can't tell me that you never took revenge on someone that harmed someone you love."

"You're right. I can't." Jason nodded. "But I didn't take it out on innocent people who had nothing to do with the wrong that was committed." He replied evenly. "And you know blaming this repeat performance on Anthony's prior treatment of your daughter plays out like a childish tantrum on a big boy playground."

Anger flashed in Alarico's eyes, but a smile soon spread dangerously across his face to match it. "I knew I liked you."

"You've got a funny way of showing it." Jason scoffed.

"I did plan on giving you first stab at Anthony. I just had to show you every reason you should want to." Alarico explained. "It's one thing to hear about someone facing the loss of a loved one, but to see the pain that that loved one is suffering, to come so close to losing them. To see the repercussions of that trauma for the rest of their life..."

Jason straightened pushing himself off the wall, eyes narrowing as his stomach slowly fell.

"It does something to you. It takes a part of your soul, something you can never get back." Alarico came closer meeting his eyes and for the first time since he met the man he could see true emotion there.

"What are you talking about? Is Felicia alive?" Jason knew that there were no reports in the U.S. About her death, only her disappearance, with all the positive talk about her death, he'd assumed. Anthony had been pretty adamant that he'd killed her.

"If you can call it living." Alarico looked away. "She's been in a coma these ten years. When we found her she'd been without air for too long. The doctors are skeptical that she ever will wake and now her health had been further declining. It was time to make him pay."

Jason swallowed tightly. "I'm sorry for your loss, but you haven't made him pay. Anthony barely knows Sam and Alicia and the one daughter he did have he would have killed himself if given half the chance. Johnny might get you some more leverage but not much. The only people you've hurt are people who didn't do anything to your daughter."

Alarico arched an eyebrow at him quizzically. "Did you watch the feed earlier? I'm not exactly an empathetic, sympathetic sort of guys. In fact I've grown a little fond of death in the past ten years. I mean what self respecting killer doesn't start to like it eventually."

Jason felt sick just talking to the man now. "I never enjoy it. I would think that anyone who did didn't have a soul."

"Oh I've got a soul. We've all got soul's. They go round and round, regurgitated after death, shoved back in some tiny squealing newborn to have another go at it. Some are just darker than others. You know Felicia's last poem really turned me onto the whole idea of reincarnation. It makes it a lot easier to justify taking a life if you know it's just gonna come on back around."

"That's the way you justify what you did to those guards? To Sam and Alicia?" Jason was barely holding it in check, forcing himself to keep it together for Sam's sake. "They'll be born again." God this guy was certifiable.

"Exactamundo." Alarico exclaimed excitedly as if Jason had just figured out the secret to the universe.

"Boss." Jason and Alarico refocused their attention the moment one of Alarico's men headed down the stairs with Sonny and Anthony in tow. The mob bosses had been stripped of their fire arms and walked into the room with arms held loosely at their sides. Sonny met Jason's eyes as if somehow to tell his friend that for once he had come through for him, that all of this was going to work out.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Max and Milo walked side by side with Edward Spinoza headed at a tight walk with the muzzle of Max's gun flush against Edwards ribcage. Max pulled young Edward into the backseat as Milo walked around to drive them the few blocks that they needed to go to meet up with the others at the construction site.

Milo looked nervously into the rear view meeting his brother's eyes before he offered the rather pasty

young man a quick. "I'm sure everything's going to be okay." Milo wasn't sure about that at all though. He'd worked with a lot of people in the business since Max got him into it and he had never met a more socially withdrawn kid in his life. He wouldn't even make eye contact, not to mention that he just freaked him out.

He could only imagine what living with a sociopath and who was obsessed with his dead daughter could do to a kid, throw in the level of intelligence the kid had to possess to do what he did and and Milo had an uncanny feeling that he was looking at a new reality show in the making. Some true version of Dexter.

The faster all this was over with, the better.

Luckily it wasn't that much of a drive to get to the construction site. Milo pulled over and quickly joined his brother to escort the boy to his father, hoping against hope that this saved Sam and Jason.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Spinelli had divided his attention between watching Sam and Johnny on the monitor and reading through the throngs and throngs of poetry that he found in the file that was marked as Felicia's. Apparently she was quite the writer. It was the last one that got to Spinelli the most. She'd written it the day before she'd died. And it was entitled "Soul's Memory" It was an homage to the time between reincarnations, rebirth, asking the simple question as to whether love survived the process.

It was a teenagers attempt at seeking answers to that which was impossible to know. Spinelli read the last line, wondering how her father could have turned it into a hallmark greeting from a serial killer. He'd seen it before, in shades of crimson across the tile in the bathroom.

A message from a sociopath trying to find answers about life and death without the capacity to ever truly understand what he was even looking for.

"Does the soul's memory find a place for love?" Spinelli whispered out the last line, reading it to himself as he contemplated the answer, feeling at a loss.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

Alarico beheld Anthony with a glare that should have been able to clean house right then and there, but his face soon changed to show his true madness as he smiled brightly at the sudden addition to the occupants of the basement. "Welcome, welcome. So good of you to join us." Jason wasn't really feeling any relief from hearing the pleasantries coming from one of the worst psycho's he'd ever met.

"Right." Sonny looked about as thrilled as Jason felt as they both were seeing every single way that this whole thing could go to hell.

Anthony, who was only slightly less crazy then Alarico returned his enemies smile. "It's good to be here," he called back. It was unsettling every sane person on the room.

"Alright. I delivered. I want the code." Jason spoke up immediately as he headed in the direction of the blast door. "You have Anthony, you can do whatever you want to him, let me get Sam and Johnny and we'll all get out of here before we see anything unsightly." he promised him.

"Oh, Son, I am hurt." Anthony admonished Jason begrudgingly. "I take back my blessing for marriage." Jason cut a glance to Anthony briefly in disdain before he looked back to Alarico expectantly.

"Not so fast. As soon as Anthony's dead, you get the code." Alarico told him.

"You want me to do it or are we drawing straws for it?" Jason asked in a rush, ready for this to be over, for Sam to be out and in his arms.

"I'm pretty sure I can handle it." Alarico chuckled as he raised his gun aiming for Anthony's chest just as a bustle of guards began backing down the stairs from above. Alarico frowned, keeping his aim poised as the guards fanned out showing who they were backing away from.

Max was already calling out as he walked with Edward down the stairs. "I've got Edward Espinoza at gun point. Everyone drop the weapons!" He called on his way down. Or I will shoot him where he stands." He promised.

"What..." the word was a choke of an effort as Alarico looked to Anthony and Jason in horror. "Edward..." Jason saw another true show of emotions there as Alarico beheld his son at gunpoint.

"I will shoot him!" Max reiterated.

Alarico glared daggers through the man. "Drop them." He ordered his men.

"The code." Jason ordered at a growl.

Alarico looked remiss to give up his one bargaining chip. He looked from Jason to his son and then to Anthony as if he was looking right at the great white he'd been after for so long, the one that had driven him to madness. He swallowed tightly looking back to his son as if weighing the options before he finally met Jason's eyes again.

"5F3!*h91" He whispered out. "Type it in forward and then backward, then the first four again." He explained as Jason nodded moving in that direction. Jason was muttering to himself trying to remember it on the way.

It was just as he got to the key pad that the whole world went to hell. Anthony reached down and picked up a discarded weapon just as Sonny was readying to tell everyone that they would simply be backing out of the room in just a moment.

"I'm not leaving without retribution for what you put three of my kids through." Anthony called out and that's about the time he fired the first shot...

Sonny reacted on the fly, grabbing up another weapon in a heartbeat as he reacted to protect Kristina by way of protecting Anthony and he dragged the both of them behind a stack of cement sacks situated about 4 feet high to the right of the stairs.

Max shoved Edward towards his father as everyone began diving for weapons and he and Milo took refuge under the stairs, firing outward from in between the steps. The whole basement erupted in an explosion of gun fire as Jason grabbed the primary door to the bomb shelter and used it to shield himself from the fire. He'd grabbed a gun on his way to the door but now was only interested in staying situated between the primary door and the blast door while he used the cover of gun fire beyond to enter the code in and unlock the blast door.

He hitched in a breath as he entered the last code and watched the light on the locking mechanism turn from red to green. And still he couldn't open the door yet, not if she could get shot because of the bedlam that Anthony had created outside. Jason cursed the man inwardly as he peered out from behind the shield of the steel primary door and fired into the enemies, seeing that Alarico was down but there was a handful of guards rushing Edward out of the basement – up the stairs.

They were making a run for it and Jason wasn't about to stop them with the head madman down. He only wished he'd been the one to shoot him. Jason looked to the green light as the gun fire died away and he quickly grabbed the handle giving the handle everything he had to get the bastard open. He wrenched the door open and peered into darkness, Sam and Johnny no where in sight.

His breath was taken in a heartbeat as he felt how hard it was to breath just from stepping into the main corridor. He left both doors wide open as he finally spotted a couple huddled together a few feet away. Jason had never been so scared as the moment that he saw Sam cuddled up to her brother the both of them out cold, holding each other in comfort.

He raced to them feeling frantically for her pulse. His fingers had just grazed the nape of her neck when he caught a slight movement and saw her eyes fluttering open. "Jason?" She whispered out causing Johnny to stir as well.

"Is the party over?" Johnny asked with a smirk.

Jason gave a scoff as he scooped Sam up and into his arms, his lips meeting hers in desperation and absolute soulful love. "It is." He whispered to Johnny as he met Sam's eyes in the dim light. "Everything's going to be just fine. It's over." He promised her. "I love you so much, Sam." God it had been 48 hours of pure hell, first not even knowing if she was alright and then not even knowing which one as her, and then scared to death that she was being tortured and yet somehow all he could think in this one moment was that she was alright. She was alive and she was alright and she was in his arms and there was mistaking that it was Sam.

"I love you," She whispered back, fighting going limp in his arms. He smiled in tearful happiness as their lips met, Sam sacrificing her necessity for air to bask in Jason's love as they met finally face to face.

Outside the bomb shelter a whole other world of things were playing out. Sonny was working quickly to get the situation contained, to get them all out of there, glad only for his daughters sake that Anthony was alive as he rushed the rescue in anticipation of escape from the cops and whoever else the shots fired was going to bring.

Max and Milo made their with the others guarding them as Anthony helped Johnny out while Jason helped Sam and Sonny walked somewhere in the middle wishing he could put a bullet in Anthony himself. They had a problem that was in need of an explosion...and any minute now the Felicia Foundations Port Charles headquarters was about to go up in flames as Jason and company sped away from the scene of the crime.

**ZZZZZZZZZZZ**

"_How can someone feel like we did out there?...Have you lost the dream that was in our hands?...Is it okay now?...How can someone feel like we did out there?...Have you lost the dream that was in our hands?...Is it okay now?..."_

Alicia Montenegro sank into the seat in first class with a smile plastered on her face as she adjusted the stylish gloves now hiding her scars. "Thanks, Sis." She whispered as she took a sip from her glass of champagne. She had a whole new life ahead of her and she couldn't be happier. But her smile was slowly fading.

The life she knew before her ordeal seemed so trivial, so...she blinked back tears not sure what to call it . Still she couldn't trust that she wouldn't be sent back to prison in present company. She couldn't let that happen. She had amends to make and a long road ahead of her.

"_Find me...inside every heartbeat...inside every worry...keep me in your heart again...Find me...inside every heartbeat (over the hills again)...inside every worry...inside your heart..."_

Sonny let out a breath in relief as he watched the video feed that Kristina had just sent him, showing that Anthony had indeed kept his word and she was now safe. He wouldn't be completely okay until she was back in Port Charles, but he trusted she was alright for now.

"Yeah, yeah I just got it." He told her tearfully as Kristina's voice greeted his in a squeal of excitement. "It looks like you guys are having a wonderful time..."

"_How can someone feel like we did out there?...Have you lost the dream that was in our hands?...Is it okay now?...Find me...inside every heartbeat...inside every worry...keep me in your heart again...Find me...inside every heartbeat (over the hills again)...inside every worry...inside your heart..."_

Jason and Sam sat wrapped around each other on the couch, a pile of chines food boxes littering the coffee table as they cuddled in a swath of heart wrenched kisses, their bodies moving in tandem, miles away from the entertainment of Johnny only an hours previous as Sam and Johnny were now trying to forge a relationship in the wake of the fire fight.

That was the last thing on the happy couples mind, however as tender turned passionate and the night was wrought with affirmations of love, their bodies speaking the words of their hearts as they became one.

"_You ran away and I would not stay...Is it your time or is it mine...is it your time...find me...inside every heartbeat...inside every worry...keep me in your heart again...find me...inside every heartbeat (over the hills again)...inside every worry...inside your heart..."_

Johnny walked through the front door, his heart riding high of the new additions to his life. Alicia may have been gone, but he still had a lot to celebrate. He set his bag of Chinese leftover down and stripped out of his coat headed up to the kitchen to see if his father had gotten himself something to eat. Maybe he thought he was too happy for him to get him down, maybe he was hoping to find some piece of his father left that hadn't checked out...

Whatever he truly hoped to find, he was sourly disappointed.

Johnny froze after he stepped through the kitchen door, the arm laying perched floor side from around the counter only a preview of what he was about to see. Johnny didn't have much love for the man, but he didn't want to find him dead. Johnny raced around the island in the kitchen and gasped both at the sight that greeted him and the sound of the door slamming all at once.

There in the floor Anthony Zacchara lay, eyes starring lifeless, a single hole in his chest betraying what caused this unfortunate turn of events as Johnny slowly turned back the way he came in order to make a phone call. He froze, however, as his gaze settled on the words that were written in his father's blood across the back of the kitchen door...

"**Does the soul's memory make room for love?"**

_-last song " Inside" by Bang Gang_


End file.
